


To thine own self be true

by rumpelsnorcack



Category: Lovely Little Losers
Genre: M/M, Other characters in minor roles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6511999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumpelsnorcack/pseuds/rumpelsnorcack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balthazar's state of mind between leaving the flat and the end of the series, as he comes to grips with all the changes in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended this as a longish one-shot, but it exploded on me. I have 4 sections completed and another (the final one? maybe?) around a third done. My intention is to post every few days, as time permits and editing etc happens, but that is subject to change.
> 
> I did have a bit of a crisis about this fic partway through writing, but I hope the resulting change in tone isn't too distracting.
> 
> Many thanks to [strangetowns](http://douchenuts.tumblr.com/), who is the world's kindest and most supportive beta and to Mollywheezy, who always knows exactly what to say and when to say it.

“Please don’t go.” 

The words haunted Balthazar on the long walk to Vegan Fred’s.  Beside him, Kit was silent, his head down and no buoyancy in his steps.  It was so alien that Balthazar felt like he should try to talk, to fill the silence with some sort of comforting noise.  That was his thing, after all – to make sure people were all good, all the time.  But tonight those words echoing in his head drowned out all sense of everything else and nailed his mouth shut.

Occasionally, he would glance over at Kit and open his mouth as if to speak, but every time he tried Pete’s words crashed in on him again and he found himself unable to say anything at all.  _Please don’t go.  Come with me.  I can’t._ Every time he got to the last words Balthazar’s heart dropped.  That was it, then.  Proof this was never going to work out.  Balthazar wasn’t stupid, he knew Peter had some sort of feelings for him.  He _knew_ that, viscerally.  Knew it in the way Peter looked at him, knew it in the not-quite-casual way their hands would touch, knew it in the way they just knew each other.  But having those feelings wasn’t enough.  Balthazar had laid himself open, vulnerable, when he’d asked Pete to come with him and the response had been that he couldn’t. 

Like Ben, like Freddie, Peter had chosen the rules.  And if that wasn’t proof that Peter’s feelings weren’t going to be enough, Balthazar didn’t know what was.  During the filming of _Stay_ , Peter had tried to get him to drop the rules so they could, what? Make out a bit.  But now, when it came to a crunch, he chose the rules over Balthazar. And that was fine. Peter owed him nothing.  But it meant it was time to move on.  He couldn’t sit around any longer just waiting for the gods to do something. 

They arrived at Vegan Fred’s and Meg came barrelling out to greet them.

“What is going on, Kit?  Bea arrived here all …” She gaped when she noticed Balthazar behind him.  “Balth!  What are you doing here?  It’s … it’s like 10.30 …”

“Needed some space.”  His voice felt odd after what felt like so long without speaking.  “I’ve … um … I’ve left the flat.  Can I stay for, like, a night or something?  Just … just ‘til I find a place, yeah?”

Vegan Fred, who was standing behind Meg, nodded.  “Sure.  Yeah you can, as long as you need.  There’s an extra bed in your room, right Kit?”

“Yeah.  Yeah there is.” Kit was about as downbeat as Balthazar had ever seen him, his voice low and troubled.

“Okay.  So … shall we have some cocoa then?”  Vegan Fred bustled off to deal with it, and Meg turned back to Balthazar.

“So you left the flat of doom, too?  Good on you!  At least one of you escaped the horror.”

Balthazar laughed a little and smiled.  But he was uncomfortable with this idea.  Had he ‘escaped’?  Couldn’t he have left any time?  What had been keeping him there, like John had insinuated?  Was it Peter?  Could this really be called escaping if he was leaving half of himself behind?  No.  He shook his head.  He wasn’t allowed to think like that anymore.  He dragged a cheerful smile onto his face and tried to forget those words hammering away at his brain.  _Please don’t go_.

Beatrice came running in from the lounge then and gave him a big hug.  “Balth!  Yay! You finally saw sense too.  I’m so proud.”

Balthazar cringed again, but hugged her back.  His heart sank as he realised this was probably how it was going to be.  Yes, he was happy to be free of the rules.  The stupid rules that had once seemed so helpful … hopeful, even … but which had become so difficult to bear up under.  But that didn’t stop the twist of his heart as he remembered his friends.  Ben, Freddie … Peter.  All still locked into the rules.  All still probably unhappy.  He looked over at Kit and saw something of the same feeling on his face.  _He_ had never been as perturbed as Bea and Meg about the tent and the rules.  And even though things tonight had been really awkward with Freddie, Kit apparently still felt the same connection to the flat that Balthazar did.  It … helped.  To know that.  The twisting in Balthazar’s heart was alleviated a little.

Bea and Meg, by contrast, seemed blindingly happy to be away.  Bea was chattering excitedly as she led Balthazar through the house to what would be his new bedroom, at least for a little while.  Balthazar sneaked a look at her and wondered what was up.  Meg he understood.  She was in Wellington to have a good time.  She was here to hang out with her friends.  Living in a tent had not lived up to either expectation.  Balthazar knew that.  But Bea…

Bea was in a relationship with one of the flatmates.  Why was she not more upset, or at least conflicted, about the events of that evening?  Not that Balthazar knew exactly what had happened with her, but from Ben’s reaction he knew it hadn’t been good.  He squinted at her as he followed her.  Was there a set to her shoulders which indicated she wasn’t as happy as she was projecting?  Or was that Balthazar just trying to rationalise?  Was that just his attempt to believe everyone else was as unhappy right now as he was?

“Are you alright, Bea?” he asked finally, once she’d shown him the room and thrown herself onto the bed.

“Me?  Yeah, fine.  Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

‘Oh.  I dunno.  Things just seemed a bit tense at ho … at the flat when we got there tonight.  Ben …” Balthazar blushed at the natural use of the word ‘home’ – he was going to have to stop that.  It wasn’t home anymore, and nor was any person who still lived there.

Bea’s eyes went cold, and her smile slipped.  “I don’t want to talk about it.  The dick … is a dick, and there’s nothing else to say.”

Balthazar nodded and dragged his eyes away from hers.  He understood why she might be feeling that way, particularly when it came to Ben.  But he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of compassion for his friend.  He tried so hard, and meant well, but he just … yeah.  Bea was right.  He could be a bit of a dick sometimes.  Balthazar still felt cold whenever he thought about the _Stay_ punishment, and how much that breach of their privacy had hurt both him and his fragile understanding with Peter.  But having those feelings didn’t stop Balthazar from remembering the panic on Ben’s face during that whole conversation tonight.  He was sure there was something going on with him, more than just being a bloody stupid idiot over the rules anyway.  If his heart hadn’t been so devastated, Balthazar might have tried to talk to her about it.  But he just didn’t have the energy, not when he needed his all to pull himself through the next few hours and days.

 

_Hey_

_Just wondering how you are_

_Call me_

_Please_

Balthazar stared at the string of messages on his phone so long his eyes became unfocused, making the words blur around the edges.  He shook his head to try to see straight, and the words leapt into clarity again.  He wished it would be that easy – just pick it up and send off a message.  But after sending that text saying where he was going, Balthazar hadn’t heard from Peter at all.  Not ‘til now.  And now it just seemed like too much work, too much effort, to justify what he’d done and why.  Besides, despite Bea’s mood swings this evening, there was a lack of tension here.  The mere idea of going back to the other flat made Balthazar’s shoulder blades knot together. He’d been so tense for so long that the lack of that tension was startling, even after just a few hours. 

And Balthazar knew, selfishly, that if he texted Peter he’d be drawn right back in.  Nothing was ever going to come of their … whatever they had between them.  The rules had made sure of that.  The separation this evening, when Peter had chosen to stay behind, had just made everything clearer.  All that Balthazar would gain from contact was more heartache – and he didn’t want to deal with any of it. 

He carefully, deliberately swiped his fingers across the screen to turn it black, and then put it down.  Then he thought better of it, and switched the phone completely off so he couldn’t even get notifications.  For good measure, he buried it deep in the bedside table Fred had provided for his stuff, under the hoodie he’d taken off to sleep and which was folded neatly in some semblance of domesticity in this foreign place.

Turning to look at the other bed, Balthazar saw Kit’s eyes gleaming at him in the dim light.

“Sorry, man.  Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay.  I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

They shared a sympathetic smile before Kit continued. 

“How do you feel?  Being away from the rules?”

“I’m not sure yet.  Free?  Relieved?”  Balthazar slid his legs under the covers and lay down.  “I don’t … it’s not really sunk in yet.”

“Yeah, I hear that.”  Kit shuffled over in his bed and gave Balthazar an intense look.  “Why wouldn’t they just stop the rules?  It would be so easy.” 

“Yeah, I dunno.  It’s …” Balthazar stopped, uneasy.  He didn’t want to do this – to tear his ex-flatmates down.   Whatever he felt about the whole situation, he still loved those people and he couldn’t bring himself to continue the thought out loud.  Instead, he contented himself with shrugging.

Kit was watching and he smiled again, a little sadly.  “Yeah.  I guess it’s easy to say from the outside.”  He turned over onto his back again, and shut his eyes as if trying to block out unwelcome thoughts.

Balthazar smiled and agreed, before turning to stare at the wall by his head.  Soon he heard Kit’s breathing even out into the soft snuffles of sleep.  Balthazar couldn’t sleep, however.  Too many things were whirling around in his head to allow him any sort of rest. 

He knew Kit would never understand the hold the rules had over them – the way things had been so unpleasant before they had them in place.  How wound up and tense Freddie had been.  How uncomfortable the shouting had become.  How intrusive Ben’s filming was.  How … how lonely they had all been, despite trying to do things together.  At first, the rules had seemed to bring harmony.  Freddie didn’t yell so much, Ben’s filming became less terrifying, Pete stopped making so much noise late at night.  And Balthazar – well, he’d stopped focusing quite so much on his schoolwork, finding some more meaning in his life outside of uni, enjoying the enforced time with his friends.  He also didn’t have to worry about his feelings getting him in trouble any more.  He could enjoy spending time with those friends without worrying if Peter, or anyone else, would think he was being desperate.  It had been peaceful.  For a while.  Until the punishments began.

Balthazar sighed.  He tried to shut out the thoughts, but they kept coming.  He’d never quite managed to switch off the feelings and make them go away.  Peter was always there, and no matter what happened he was always unfailingly kind to Balthazar.  If there was one thing that was guaranteed to make Balthazar stay in love, it was that.  Try as he might he couldn’t switch off and move on.  In hindsight, the attempt to make himself move on with the rules had always been doomed to failure.  The rules ensured both that Peter was in the flat at ten every night _and_ that he wasn’t distracted by other people.  They meant that Peter turned his not-insignificant charm on Balthazar a lot more than he had in the past few months.  In short, they meant that Balthazar fell deeper into the hole than ever.

But, he reminded himself, that was over now.  He didn’t have to live with knowing Peter was there, just a couple of rooms away.  He didn’t have to deal with the shafts of pain that lanced through him when he caught a glimpse of Peter and remembered conversations they’d had, or things that had occurred.  He was free.  So why, he asked himself as he drew his pillow over his head, did he feel so rotten about this?  Why was the relief at being away from the rules not more profound?

 

The next few days were both the best and worst of the entire time Balthazar had spent in Wellington.  Fred’s house was so calm and peaceful compared to the flat Balthazar had just left.  It was nice to have no camera trained on him from the minute he woke to the minute he went to bed.  It was nice to spend time with people because he wanted to rather than because he had to for a challenge or a bonding session.  It was _really_ nice to know that no matter what he did he didn’t have to worry that he would be caught out and punished for some slight infraction of a rule.  It was just … nice.  When he thought about the naïve pleasure the early days of the rules brought him, Balthazar snorted.  His younger self had no idea just how uncomfortable that flat was going to become.  He’d been so hopeful, and now all the things that had given him solace were the very things that felt like they’d trapped him.  So, he was happy to be out and somewhere that he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

On the other hand, there was an ever-present ache when he thought about those he’d left behind.  He thought about them far more often than he felt he had a right to.  He had, after all, been the one to walk out.  He’d been the one to desert his friends.  That made the constant barrage of joy about his ‘sensible decision’ to ‘leave the awful flat’ – and the insinuations that came with it, that those he’d left behind were all assholes – really hard to take.  It made him uncomfortable because, after all, he’d been a part of those ‘awful rules’ and talking as if he had been a victim of the others’ manipulations just didn’t sit right with Balthazar.  But no-one wanted to listen.  They were entrenched in an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ battle and acted as if Balthazar must feel the same way too.

“But, Balthy … it’s so good that you broke free of the shackles,” Meg exclaimed one day, when he expressed his reluctance to attack his friends.  “Don’t you feel great to be away from the oppression?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess it just wasn’t all bad.  And yeah, of course it’s good to have no rules.  But, like, I feel that …” he trailed off, unable to articulate how much he missed some aspects of his old life. 

Meg squeezed his shoulder and let him go, clearly assuming he was merely being nice.  It infuriated Balthazar when he thought about it – that they all made assumptions about what he thought and how he felt.  But he had no energy to fight anyone and so he always just smiled and let it slide.  The longer he stayed away from the old flat, the less the others pushed him.  So he was hopeful that someday they’d stop harassing him about it altogether and he could relax.

 

Things came to a head soon enough, though.  Balthazar hadn’t even managed a week of peace.  It was Wednesday, though it was hard to believe that only five days had passed since his moment of terrifying decision.  Balthazar had done his best to keep out of the way of the flatmates in that time.  From switching off his phone to consciously not watching the videos anymore, he was distancing himself as much as he could. 

It wasn’t that he was avoiding Peter or the others, exactly.  It was more that he was so caught up in his own misery that he couldn’t deal with the flat … with Pete.  Well, maybe he _was_ avoiding Pete a little.  But that was just self-preservation.  There was still too much risk of Balthazar falling right back into his old ways if he saw him again. 

The days passed with work and study, and Balthazar tried to push away the nagging thought that ignoring the flat was a bit, well, a bit cowardly.  That self-preservation was really cowardice in disguise.  Unfortunately, things got to a point where Balthazar realised he _had_ to go back.  His one outfit had been washed and he was grateful that Fred had loaned him another set to use.  But they were even more ridiculously huge than usual, and Balthazar felt wrong accepting someone else’s clothes – not when all that was keeping him from his own stuff was his own fear.  He needed his things, and that was all there was to it.  He could do that.  Just go there, smile a bit, say some things and get out.  It would be fine.  Even so, it took him a couple of days of dithering before he actually made the journey over there.

When he got there, things were far from fine.  For a start, they’d apparently descended into sword fighting to resolve their differences.  Peter was fighting Costa, who Balthazar remembered vaguely from his party, and they were yelling.  He leaned on the door jamb, waiting for them to be done so he could get inside without being impaled.  Peter looked … he looked so good that Balthazar’s heart ached at the sight of him.  As he’d known, coming here was just pulling all those feelings back.  He felt jittery and warm merely looking at Peter, so he tried to keep his eyes away as much as he could, focusing instead on the swords.

Then Peter’s words crashed in on him, and he stilled.

“…because of Jaquie.  Costa, I slept with her!”

It’s not like that was exactly a shock to Balthazar.  He’d known from the moment Peter had started bringing her around to the flat that there was something between Peter and Jaquie. Their flirtatious natures meant they bounced off each other really easily, far more easily than Balthazar felt like he’d been able to manage with Peter since that long-ago day in the bath, and the two of them just seemed natural and happy together.  The words still punched him in the guts, though he kept as calm a face as he could, fully aware of the camera filming the entire encounter.  It wasn’t like he had any sort of ownership of Peter, after all.  It was important that any filming that happened didn’t give any hint that Balthazar thought Peter owed him anything, because he didn’t.  Knowing that Peter would most likely watch this back again later, Balthazar kept his face as neutral as he could.

That worked until Peter turned and saw Balthazar.

Balthazar then had to watch Peter’s face change as he turned and saw him, and once again Balthazar was struck by just how open Pete’s face was these days.  He looked devastated as he met Balthazar’s eyes.  It cut at him, that look.  Shit.  He’d never intended to be the one to give Peter pain.

“Balth.”

How could his name cause Peter to look like _that_?  This was not okay.  Balthazar pulled himself together, looking Peter in the eye and trying not to let any of his emotions show on his face.  The least he could do was try not to cause Peter any _more_ pain.

“Me and Jaquie … it was just a fling …” Peter’s eyes were so anxious as he held Balthazar’s gaze.  He looked like he’d just lost everything and was about to lose more.

Balthazar felt his stomach clench.  He couldn’t allow Peter to do this to himself, so he smiled.  He said something as non-committal as he could as he passed, and headed into what used to be his room.  He wasn’t fast enough to miss Costa’s words though.

“Is this what this is about?  Chin up, Peter.  Just because you broke up with your boyfriend …”

Balthazar closed his eyes as he managed to close his door on the rest of the comment.  Boyfriend.  Oh, how he wished that was true.  But it wasn’t, and now it looked like it never would be.  _Come with me.  I can’t_.  The words still rang in his ears, worse now that he was back here and had seen Peter again.  Worse now that he’d seen Peter’s face and the sadness and guilt there.  The thing was, Balthazar knew Peter tended to take on guilt for things he did if he thought they hurt others.  That had been at the heart of his unhappiness for the last few months, after all.  But Balthazar just wished he wouldn’t take on _this_.  Peter’s sex life had never bothered Balthazar.  In fact, for a long time he’d seen it as healthy, but when it looked like it was making him unhappy – when it made him look like he had today – that’s when Balthazar got concerned.  All Balthazar wanted was for Peter to be happy, and if his presence made him as unhappy as it obviously had today?  Well, then it was definitely past time for him to make a true break.  The thought made his heart ache, but it felt like the right thing to do for Peter.

Taking a deep breath, Balthazar leaned his head back against the door, waiting for a long moment for his heartrate to return to normal, before gathering himself together and trying to focus on why he was here.  His things.  The important things.  Guitar, headphones, some clothes.  He had intended to get his toothbrush and hair products, but they were in the bathroom and he couldn’t face going through the lounge more than he needed to.  He could hear the others still out there, and wanted to limit his contact with them as much as he could.  He’d been borrowing Vegan Fred’s hair stuff, and brushing his teeth with a spare toothbrush Meg had, but he missed his own.  Still, he could buy new stuff – anything was better than having to face everyone again after … well, after.

Balthazar got out of the flat as quickly as he could.  Seeing Peter, the way he’d looked, had been too much, and trying to hold any semblance of a natural conversation was too hard.  It took all his strength to tell them he wouldn’t stay and watch Peter being knighted.  It would be too easy, he knew, to stay – but he knew that would just draw him back in.  For too long he’d taken on responsibility for making sure was Peter happy (for making sure everyone was happy, really), but now that it seemed Balthazar was part of the things _making_ Peter unhappy he figured he needed to keep his distance.

 

Once he got back to Vegan Fred’s, Balthazar pulled his phone out of the drawer and looked at it.  It looked innocent enough – black, with the cracked screen he’d never bothered to get fixed.  But it also represented so much that he was trying to get away from.  The visit to the flat had reminded him that, no matter how much he loved those people (and he did love them all), the situation at the flat itself had been eating at him too much for too long.  Getting out, having a change, _had_ been the right thing to do.  He threw the phone back in the drawer, uncharged, and forced himself out into the kitchen to talk to the others.

Meg and Bea pounced on him as soon as he emerged from his room.  Everyone had been fascinated to know how he was going to react to his visit to his old home – and, though they refused to admit it, they were all dying to know how the flatmates were doing without them.  They sat him down at the table and refused to let him up until he talked.

“I don’t know.  They seemed fine, I think.  Ben asked about you,” Balthazar turned to Bea with a gentle smile.  “I told him to call you.”

“Yeah thanks,” she said sarcastically.  “I’d actually rather not talk to him.” 

Bea sank into one of the chairs next to Balthazar, glowering at the world. 

Balthazar shrugged, fingers picking at the patch on the table where a knot in the wood was coming loose.  He didn’t want to antagonise Bea, but he really didn’t see why they shouldn’t talk.  Then again, he wasn’t exactly rushing to talk to Peter, was he?  There was a word for people like him – one Meg had already chucked about in song.  He refocused. 

“Wasn’t going to tell him anything.  Figured it was your call.”

“Thanks,” Bea said again, this time with a small smile.  She looked a little more relaxed, which allowed Balthazar to relax too.

“But the others, Balth.  Freddie … Peter.  We need to know.  We deserve to know,” Meg said with a sideways glance at Kit.

Balthazar shrugged again.  “Like I said, they seemed fine.  They were doing some sort of knighting thing when I left – a challenge maybe?”

Meg grimaced.  “Balthy, you are the least communicative person on this planet.  I swear if you don’t give us the goods I will cut off your supply of brownies.”

Balthazar laughed.  “No, not the brownies,” he cried in mock anguish.

“You think I jest, but I’m deadly serious,” Meg said with a stern look on her face.

“What the hell do you mean by a knighting thing?” Bea cut in impatiently.

“I don’t know?  Freds was about to knight Peter but I wanted to get this back to you, Meg,” he said, pointing at the camera which he’d laid carefully on the table when he’d arrived and holding her gaze.  “So I didn’t really see what they were doing.”

“Sounds like they don’t give a fuck,” Meg said, sounding disappointed.  “I had hoped they’d be moping messes without us, but apparently they’re having a great time.”

Privately, Balthazar thought they probably weren’t doing totally fine (there was something bleak about the way all of them had been acting), but he didn’t want to rock the boat.  He slid his chair back and headed quietly for his room. The others were arguing (“I think we should do a really happy vlog to show them how amazingly happy we all are” “No, but that’s giving them what they want”), so they didn’t notice him slip away.

He heaved a sigh of relief when he reached his room.  All in all, it had been an emotionally draining day and he just wanted to lie down and try to process how he felt about the Peter and Jaquie thing.  He was just relieved the others hadn’t picked up that he was avoiding talking about Peter.  As unsettling as the last few minutes had been, they would have been much worse if anyone had realised how upset he had been on the inside. 

The meeting with Peter had also reinforced one more thing – even taking away the fact that Balthazar was part of the problem for Peter, he had realised that he was too weak to spend any more time with this group.  He’d be right back in that situation he’d been in before: constrained by the rules and pining over Peter.  Even in that moment of raw sadness, Peter had looked so good and Balthazar had been drawn to him.  He couldn’t do that to himself.  Not again.  When his desire for Peter to be happy clashed with his own tendency to pine, Balthazar knew he would be in a lot of emotional trouble if he allowed himself more contact with the flat.  Worse, he was pretty sure Peter would also be in trouble emotionally.  For both their sakes he needed distance, and thank goodness for Vegan Fred and his generous offer of accommodation.  Without it he might have been tempted back.  Without it, he might not have had the strength to do what he had to do.


	2. Chapter 2

In the end, Meg won the vlogging debate and she victoriously set the camera up to film them making Boyet’s famous brownies.  The very idea made Balthazar cringe, but no-one would accept his absence.

“No, Balthy!” Meg had said, turning her formidable stare on him when he’d first suggested being behind the camera.  “They need to see _all_ of us having a good time.  They need to know we aren’t sitting here pining over their sorry arses.”

Balthazar had shrugged, thinking privately that it _was_ probably a good idea that his old flatmates be reminded that Balthazar was doing fine without them – that way they wouldn’t have to worry about him and what was going on with him.  Peter’s anxious texts did weigh on Balthazar’s mind a little, and while the idea of making contact himself worried him (would he just be pulled back into the flat’s orbit again?) doing something to let them know he was okay seemed like the decent thing to do.  Even so, he was reluctant to be called in from off screen as if he was some sort of star.

“But I’ve been here for ages.  It’s not like a new thing.”

“Yes, but my viewers haven’t seen you here. They don’t know how you’re doing.”

“They were filming when I got back there.  That’s probably online by now!” Balthazar protested.  But Meg wasn’t listening.

“Okay, so you’ll come in when we introduce you and be like the new star of the flat, the one who escaped the shackles of the terrible flat of doom.  It’ll be epic.”

“That’s an awful title; you can’t call it that,” Bea argued.  “But yes, Balthy coming in all ‘surprise I’m here’ will be brilliant.”

Sighing, Balthazar gave in.  It would take too much energy to fight the others now they’d got an image in their minds of what this would be like, so he just didn’t.  Besides, choosing to film felt like he was taking some control of his life.  There had been times at his old flat when he’d felt that the filming was just one more example of him having no say in his own life, a feeling that had been building all year.  From his studies and the pressure he felt to do well to the flat challenges and Ben’s control of the footage, Balthazar had often felt like his life was being run by invisible hands outside his control.  His professors, his friends, his family – they all seemed to have more ability to direct his life than he did himself.  Taking that back, deciding for himself to take action felt like the start to a new, happier Balthazar.

When the filming actually happened, however, he felt more awkward than he’d expected.  It was the first time he’d knowingly been on camera in such a long time that he’d forgotten how to be relaxed and natural.  Though he tried hard, he wasn’t comfortable being so much in the limelight, and he felt like it showed.  He found himself muttering something inane about wanting a change and almost blushed as he looked at Fred.  Thankfully, his nerves settled quickly, helped in no small part by the very flirty and attentive looks Fred was giving him and he was able to genuinely relax and enjoy the moment with his friends.

After so long aching with a longing for Peter that was too complex, too difficult, to navigate easily, it was so nice to be somewhere uncomplicated.  Where a flirty look could just be a flirty look and not hide months and years of unacknowledged tension.  Balthazar found himself drawn to the other guy in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to be since Damian.

It wasn’t until Bea suggested he and Fred go together to get ‘some arty shots’ at the beach for the headers of the video that Balthazar realised what his friends might be trying to do.  While it had been flattering to think Fred might be interested, and been a balm to his bruised heart, Balthazar couldn’t stomach the idea of being set up – again – by his well-meaning, but interfering, friends.

He shot them one look of irritation as he and Fred left the house to make their way down to the rocks near the pier, but tried to keep up some pleasant conversation with Fred.  It wasn’t his fault, after all.

“What exactly do you think she meant by arty shots?” Fred asked as they fumbled their way over the uneven surface.

“Trickling water?  Pretty rocks?  That sort of stuff?” Balthazar replied.  “I think it’s up to our discretion.”

“That’s a bit dangerous, isn’t it?” Fred asked, casting a shrewd look over at Balthazar.  “You don’t seem too impressed with this whole revenge blogging business.  You could make a right mess of it just to annoy them.”

Balthazar blushed.  “Yeah I’m not really, but I can’t ruin Meg’s video.  That wouldn’t be right.  Besides,” he added practically, “they’d just shoot something else so it wouldn’t matter anyway.”

“Hmm, if you say so,” Fred said.  He glanced over at Balthazar again, with a warm smile.  “Do you think we should do some sort of ‘eating the brownies on the beach’ thing?”  He walked on for a few moments, his eyes creased in thought.  “Could be good advertising for the shop,” he added.

Balthazar smiled over at him, experiencing again that uncomplicated feeling of pleasure from the looks Fred had given him.

“That seems fair.”

They walked on for a few more moments before finding a small area where there were some interesting pebbles and plenty of water, which definitely seemed to fit the bill of ‘arty’ that Bea had specified.  The filming was easy and they soon had what they thought was probably enough footage for Meg to get as artistic as she liked.  Balthazar felt happier in that hour or so than he had been since coming to Fred’s. 

“This has been nice,” he sighed.  “It’s really good to have something to do which has an end, you know?”

“Not sure where you’re going with this, Balth.”

“Well, you know.  You have a job to do, you start it, work through it and end it.  It’s uncomplicated.  Like brownies.”  He waved the small box they’d brought with them for emphasis.

Fred laughed and touched him briefly on the arm.  “I think I understand,” he said.

Balthazar froze.  It had been a long time since someone who wasn’t Peter had touched him like that and it threw him a little.  He knew, intellectually, that remaining hooked on Peter wasn’t healthy for him and that he should try to move on.  He knew that.  And yet … there was nothing there with Fred, and all it had taken to show him that was one small touch.  The problem was, Balthazar knew Fred was interested in him, at least a little.  He’d seen it, basked in it, after all.  It had been there in all the intercepted looks and the small smiles, the adjusted glasses and the extra attention.  Balthazar didn’t want to hurt Fred, but he didn’t know how to extricate himself from what was going on without doing so, at least a little.  Not when he felt like he’d been complicit in suggesting something he now knew he didn’t want.

At this point he knew he needed to pull back a bit.  It wasn’t fair to Fred to act as if there was a chance when Balthazar knew there wasn’t.  He was great, a really wonderful guy.  But Balthazar just wasn’t attracted to him.  The moments of tentative flirting had to stop – and stop now.  Even so, Balthazar couldn’t bring himself to be unfriendly, not when he was accepting Fred’s hospitality.  He was going to have to do something about that, too, he realised.  And soon.  Shaking off his thoughts, Balthazar tried to be natural with Fred.

“So, we should do this outro thing, yeah?  Eat some brownies, have some laughs,” he said, pulling out the camera and switching it on.  He pointed it at the two of them, and Fred’s stiff stance and awkward smile made Balthazar grin a little.

“Is this not a photo?” Fred asked, and Balthazar laughed.

“No, it’s a film,” he said as he prepared to film their brownie experience for posterity, and Meg’s happiness.

 

For the next few days, Balthazar agonised about how to let the others know he wanted to move out.  There never seemed to be a good time to bring it up, and since Fred seemed to have picked up on Balthazar’s reluctance to take things any further and kept his distance, it seemed almost churlish to try to explain _why_ he needed to move out.  So Balthazar stewed in his own indecision – in the end deciding that he would hunt around for a new place to live, and then let the others know.  There was no point in stressing everyone out, after all, until things were properly sorted. 

So, in the meantime, he buried himself in his school work – allowing the study to take his mind off everything going on and giving him an excuse to stay in his room as much as he needed to.  He knew the others were getting a little concerned about him, but he felt most at peace by himself and so retreated to the room as often as he could.  Besides, it was exam time and he needed to do well.  After all the stress and worry of the year, Balthazar fretted that he didn’t know enough to get the results he wanted.

Kit seemed to get it.  After one brief, “you okay, bro?” he let Balthazar be, coming into the room only briefly himself, and staying mostly in the common areas of the house.  Balthazar was grateful.  Kit was a decent bloke, who just _got_ it in a way that even some of his oldest friends didn’t.  He never bugged Balthazar about doing ‘too much’ work, but he did occasionally sit with him and get him to play music and stop worrying about his exams for a few minutes.  He was, Balthazar thought, the best sort of friend to have – supportive and non-demanding. 

And then there was Bea.  It had been so long since Balthazar had seen her in a relaxed environment that he’d forgotten how much fun she could be.  She was filled with laughter and sunshine in a way she hadn’t been when she was living in the tent.  Balthazar sometimes felt a stab of guilt over the fact that the tent had been his idea, by the fact that it had seemed like a good compromise at the time but had obviously taken its toll on his friends.  Mostly, though, he enjoyed the times his studies allowed him to spend with her and with Meg who was also enjoying her time in Wellington with her job and new friends.  They were both high spirited and enthusiastic and Balthazar had noticed they had become closer friends in the time since he had moved to Wellington.  He was almost jealous of the easiness of their banter as they bounced off each other so effortlessly.

“Balthy come here!” Meg called one day when he was getting a glass of water from the kitchen during a study break.  “We need your help – it’s life or death in here.”

“Sounds serious.”  Balthazar smiled as he walked through to the lounge where she and Bea were perched on the edge of the couch obviously in the middle of an argument.

“The most serious.  She,” Meg pointed at Bea who tried to look angelic, “says that peanut butter is a better spread than Marmite.  I’m not sure I can handle the strain this is putting on the relationship.”

Balthazar laughed.  “I’m not sure what I can tell you, Meg.  Marmite is the devil’s food.”

Bea leaped to her feet and yelled in victory before giving Balthazar an enthusiastic high five while Meg groaned.

“Not you, too, Balthy.  Why are all my friends so terrible?”

He laughed again, feeling happy.  “Just think – it leaves more Marmite for you and Fred.”

“Yeah, and we will generously allow you to keep it in the house,” Bea added as she sat down again. 

“Because we’re kind like that,” Balthazar said.

“So kind,” Meg said, laughing.  “But now I’m hungry and I’m going to go make some toast and use layers and layers of Marmite.  I may even bring it back in here just to torture you guys.”

Bea poked her tongue out at Meg as she left and Balthazar sniggered.  He sank down onto a nearby chair and looked at Bea carefully, thinking back to the first night he was here and how worried he’d been about her.  There was a small smile on her lips and she looked content.  He hoped she was as happy as she seemed.

“Are you okay?” he asked, wanting to be sure. 

“Me?  What?  Yeah.  Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh, I dunno.  I feel like a lot has happened, you know?”

A shadow crossed her face, but she smiled at him.  “I’m fine.  It’s … it’s good here.”

“It is nice.  Sometimes feels a bit surreal.”

She laughed at that.  “That’s a good word for it.  Who would ever have thought I’d be living in an amazing Wellington house and working in a vegan café?”

“How’s that going?”

“It’s so great, Balth.  Fred is the best boss, and the customers …”

She launched into a detailed explanation of her job, her hands fluttering as she emphasised particularly wonderful aspects of the job.  Balthazar smiled as he listened.  Bea’s passion for life had always been one of the things he’d like most about her, and it was nice to see it in action again.  She wound down eventually, her face still alight with remembered pleasure.  She squinted at him.

“How about you?  Are you okay?”

Balthazar startled, unsure what to say.  He’d been so focused on Bea that he hadn’t really paid much attention to how he felt. 

“I’m good.  Really good,” he said slowly.  “It’s been weird, but it’s really nice to be with you guys.”

Bea nodded thoughtfully.  “I worry about you sometimes.”

“I know.  But it’s okay, you don’t need to.”

“You seem a little sad.”  She looked at him, her eyes sympathetic and he blushed.

“I guess I am sometimes.  But not, like, properly sad.  Just a bit nostalgic I think.”

Bea nodded again.  “Do you ever think you’d like to go back and change stuff?  Just relive some moments so things go better?”

“Yeah, sometimes.  But then I think what if that made it worse?  So, then I think maybe I should try to make now better.”

“Words of wisdom.”

Balthazar sniggered, hearing the echo of Freddie’s words.  “I dunno about that.  But it feels more peaceful somehow.”

“Yeah I get that.” Bea smiled over at him.  “Anyway, I’m fine, you’re fine.  We’re all fine.”

Just then, Meg returned with her toast and added, “and we are all _fine_ , if you know what I mean,” and winked at them.

Balthazar grinned and raised his eyebrows at her while Bea pretended to vomit.  He felt happy, he realised, and decided to sit with them for a while – study could wait.

 

Over the next few days, Balthazar realised he _was_ actually at peace.  His life had some sort of balance now and he found himself relaxing into his new routine.  His schoolwork didn’t feel as overwhelming as it had done at the start of the year, and his new flatmates were so much more restful than his old ones.  At least, they were now that they seemed to have backed off from the Vegan Fred business.  The knot of tension had long since left his shoulders and Balthazar found himself laughing naturally and often when he was with the others, and feeling blissfully happy when he was alone.  If there was any regret about leaving his old flat behind, it surfaced only occasionally and never for long.  Making the break, while emotionally draining and difficult, had been the best thing for him.  There was a residual feeling of guilt over his hasty exit from the flat and the fact that his friends still seemed quite unhappy, but Balthazar realised he was happy here.  And that, he thought grumpily when he looked back a few days later, should have been a vivid neon sign shouting that it was too good to last.

 

“Balth!” Paige’s voice was husky and strangely high pitched as it came down the phone line.

Balthazar’s stomach clenched in fear.  “What?  What’s wrong?  Is it Chelsey?”

“What?  No.” And now Balthazar could hear the suppressed excitement hiding behind the breathiness of her words.  “Do you still watch those videos?  The flat ones?”

“No.”  Balthazar frowned in confusion.  “Why?”

“You need to watch the latest one.  The one Peter posted.”

“I … what?  Why?”

“Don’t argue.  Just do it.”  He could hear her expel a breath on the other end of the phone, and the annoyance in her tone.  “You’re not going to, are you?”

“I don’t know … it’s weird.”  Balthazar had spent so much time, and so much energy, trying to put the old flat behind him, trying to put Peter behind him.  The idea of searching out something he’d done just didn’t sit right, and Paige knew that.  “I just feel … I need to make a break, you know?”

He heard Paige start to say something but then stop with an exasperated sigh.  “Ah, screw this,” she said.  “I’m coming over, Balth, and we’ll watch together.  No arguing.”

By the time Paige arrived, Balthazar was pacing.  _Why_ would he need to watch a video?  Paige knew they were just painful for him now.  He’d barely glanced at them since Ben started posting the huge number of old Balth in a Baths.  Remembering how things had been with Peter back in February, so happy and carefree, was just too difficult to bear when he was trying to get over his infatuation – and the current day videos weren’t exactly joyous either.  He’d had no fun watching those, not since Peter had posted _Stay_.  So now he just stayed away from the whole business.  It was easier that way.

“Where’s your laptop?”  Paige was direct and no-nonsense when she arrived.  “And we need to be somewhere private.  That’s important.” 

Somewhat taken aback, Balthazar led her to the room he was sharing with Kit.  He was at work so they had a little privacy.

“Can you lock that?” Paige nodded at the door, and Balthazar nodded, baffled, but did so.  “Okay, you sit down there.  I’ll get the video up and then show you, okay?”

Balthazar obediently sat on his bed and waited for her to get YouTube loaded.  Paige sat beside him and showed him the computer screen.

“What is that?”

“Read it,” she prompted.  “The description.”

Balthazar read, and as he did his head swam.  What was Peter even saying?  He couldn’t connect the words with any sort of reality.  He couldn’t feel his way to a meaning; all he could generate was shocked confusion.  Then Paige pressed play and the video started.

_A Sonnet.  For Balthazar._

The words pressed in on him, in a way the description hadn’t.  For Balthazar.  For _him_.  He swallowed, his breath suddenly tight in his throat, and then Peter looked up, directly into the camera and began to speak.  To him.  To Balthazar.  Time stood still as he looked into those eyes.  He barely heard, let alone understood, the words themselves.  He was hypnotised by Peter’s voice, seductive, caressing, sincere.  There was no doubting the sincerity. 

A few seconds after Paige clicked stop on the video, Balthazar realised his hands were shaking and that she had him in a strong embrace, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as his breaths came in short bursts.  He couldn’t look at her.

“What?”  His voice croaked, unconnected to him.  Balthazar tucked his hands under his armpits because they refused to stop shaking.  “I don’t know … what?”

Paige laughed softly.  “How much did you take in?”

“Not … not much.”

“I’ll play it again.”

This time, Balthazar focused on the words themselves.  His heart beat erratically as he heard Peter describe him as ‘my music’ and finally understood the declaration at the end.  This time, he noticed the sign off, ‘love, Petrov.’  Love.

“Shit,” he said, his voice weak and he could hear the wonder in it.

“So?”

“I don’t … I don’t know what to do, Paige.”

She hugged him closer.  “Yes you do.  You’re just scared.”

“What do I say?  How do I do it?  I can’t …”

Balthazar could feel the anxiety building up in him.  His skin felt tight, and the very idea of reaching out to Peter made his body seize up with panic.

“It’s up to you now.  He put this up.  You _know_ how hard that is.”

Balthazar swallowed again, and nodded.  Putting yourself online like that _was_ a hard thing to do.  That didn’t change the heart stopping fear coursing through his body right now, though.  After six years, putting things into the hands of the gods and attempting to allow it to develop organically, this thing between him and Peter had finally come to a head so to speak.  After so much time thinking all chance was gone, being faced with the possibility that it wasn’t over was actually stressful, as contradictory as that might seem to someone outside his head.  Whatever Balthazar did now would set the course of this thing – and that was just as scary as it was wonderful.

“You should call him.”

Balthazar could feel his face draining of colour as his heart raced unpleasantly, and Paige obviously noticed too.  She squeezed his arm.

“Okay, okay.  A text then.  You can do that.”

“I’m not sure I can, actually.”

“Balth …”

“Nah, not saying I won’t.  I just … I need to think a bit.”

“Okay.  But … don’t leave it too long, hey?  He’s going to wonder what you think.”

“I know.  I just …” Balthazar trailed off as a thought hit him – how long ago did this go up?  How long _had_ Peter been waiting to see what he thought?  “Actually.  When was this posted?”

“I’m not sure.”  Paige scrolled down to look at the description again.  “Looks like yesterday, maybe?  Youtube’s dating system always makes my head ache.  Oh! Wait, look … there’s another video here.  One from Meg.”

She clicked on the video, which looked innocuous. It had been posted mere minutes before.  Balthazar was interested to see what Bea and Meg had to say, assuming it would be something silly about the gifts that had been delivered yesterday.  He knew they weren’t impressed and had been laughing, rather maliciously to be sure, about the things that had been sent.  He figured they’d make some jokes about the fudge and be done with it. That had been the tone of all Meg’s videos after all, regardless of how bad they’d been feeling when they’d filmed them.  After last year, she and Bea had made a point of not putting anything really negative online.

Balthazar’s thoughts were still whirling from the sonnet Peter had posted (for him! A sonnet! For him!), so it took him a while to take in what they were saying.  But as he watched the new video he could feel himself getting sicker and sicker to his stomach, his jubilant feelings leaching away.  His thoughts started crystallising into clarity as he watched his friends tearing into their partners on the internet.

“What … what?  This is …” Try as he might, Balthazar couldn’t line this video up with the tone of all Meg’s other ones.  Why now?  He wondered.  Why be this open on the internet _now_?

 _What about Balthazar?_ The words leapt out of the screen at him, and he shook his head, trying to clear himself of the sudden rush of anxiety those words caused. 

“Oh, Balth.  Oh no.  You need to turn this off.” Paige reached over to shut down YouTube, but Balthazar put his hands over hers to stop her.

“No, let it play,” he said as he watched as his friends turned their ire to Peter and the sonnet.  He needed to see what his flatmates, and supposed friends, were saying in his absence.  Soon, though, he wished he’d let Paige turn it off.  In fact, Balthazar felt sick just watching it.  All the fluttery, shaky, overwhelming feelings he’d been swamped with after watching the sonnet had dissipated.  That explosion of disbelieving joy – gone.  It had all drained out of him, leaving him shaky for a completely different reason.  His heart felt like lead in his stomach, and he could feel his eyes starting to well up.

“I …” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and turned to Paige.  “Paige, I’m sorry.  I need to be alone right now.”

“Sure,” she said, sliding off the bed and pressing his arm in sympathy.  “I’ll just … I’ll let you decide what to do now.”

“Yeah, thanks Paige.”  Balthazar tried to smile at her naturally.  It didn’t feel right on his face, and the look Paige gave him showed she didn’t believe it but was just politely ignoring it.  She gently closed the door behind her and left Balthazar to his whirling thoughts.

 _Come on Peter, sort your shit out_.  Those words pummelled his head over and over again.  What did Bea even mean by that?  By most counts, as far as Balthazar could tell, Peter _was_ pretty sorted.  What exactly did Bea and Meg (and Kit too?  He’d been pretty quiet in this bit but hadn’t tried to stop the girls) expect from Peter?  They were acting as if he’d betrayed them as badly as Ben and Freddie had – worse, in fact.  Ben had rated a tiny comment about lumps of sugar, while Peter … well.  Peter had been metaphorically eviscerated.

Heartsick over what this must be doing to Peter, if he’d seen it, Balthazar pulled his phone out of the drawer.  He needed to make contact, to see for himself that Peter was okay, to respond to the sonnet somehow, even though he still hadn’t had time to process it.  When he tried to turn the phone on, however, it remained stubbornly blank, its black screen mocking him.  Oh.  Right.  It had no charge – Balthazar had let it run out of charge when he’d come here.

With shaking hands, Balthazar pulled out his charger and plugged the phone in.  It would take at least a few minutes to get it charged enough to send a text and in the meantime, Balthazar decided he needed a cup of tea.  He needed something to ground him, and he’d always found tea calming.  So he headed to the kitchen to get one. 

The act of making it did settle his nerves, but his thoughts were still whirling.  Peter’s intentions were clear, obviously.  There really was, in hindsight, no way to ignore the intention behind the sonnet: getting together in some way with Balthazar.  But despite that first dizzy, giddy joy he’d felt on watching the sonnet, Balthazar couldn’t relax.  The rules were still there and still an issue.  So nothing had really changed.  Until there were no rules, Balthazar couldn’t allow himself to be with Peter.  There would always be something between them – he’d seen the way Freddie and Kit had been with the rules dogging their relationship.  Neither of them had looked happy, and Balthazar didn’t want that for himself, or for Peter.

He stared at the phone for a while before unplugging it and putting it back in the drawer.

 

“Hey, Balth.  How are you?  You look a bit tired.”

Meg’s voice was cheerful and it was all Balthazar could do to keep a polite smile on his face.  It had been several hours, and Balthazar still felt sick to his stomach when he thought of the video the others had posted. 

“Yeah, Balthy.  You don’t seem like yourself today,” Bea added from her perch by the island bar. 

Balthazar sucked in a deep breath and kept his eyes focused on the cup of coffee he was carrying.  He wasn’t sure he’d be able to control himself if he looked them in the eye.  They were acting as if they hadn’t just ripped into some of their friends and put the evidence online for all to see.

“I’m fine,” he managed before trying to get past them and back to the relative safety of his room.

“Woah, okay.  You don’t sound fine. What’s up?”

“I _said_ I’m fine.”

“No. No.  I’m sick of this bullshit you pull whenever you’re pissed about something.  You’re not fine and I want to know why.”  Beatrice reached a hand out to him.  “Is it that dickhead you left behind?  Because …”

And finally Balthazar couldn’t take it anymore.  He’d spent the last few hours trying to think of all the reasons why they might have done what they did.  He’d tried to excuse them because they were so obviously hurting.  He’d tried to let it slide and just go back to the way things had always been.  But having them attack Peter again was too much.

“You call it bullshit.  I call it trying not to kill you,” he said, running a stressed hand through his hair.  “But you want to know, so whatever.  I’m angry at you, Meg.  And you, Bea.  Is that what you wanted to know?”  He finally looked them in the eye and both of them pulled back from whatever they could see in his expression.  “I’m so angry that even talking to you is making me feel ill so I’d like to just not do this right now.”

He tried to get past again, but Bea slid in front of him and he stopped, breathing hard and refusing to look at her.

“You’re angry with _us_?” the incredulity in her tone kicked his anger up a notch.  It was like she didn’t even realise he had a reason to be angry.  Like she expected him to be grateful they’d spoken for him.

Balthazar looked her in the eye.  He took a deep breath, and tried to control his shaking.  He hated this.  He didn’t want to do this right now.  He wasn’t good at confrontation at the best of times and this wasn’t the best of times – he would much rather have time to work it out for himself before he had to talk about it to other people.  He tried to slide out the door again and avoid Bea’s question.  But she stood her ground and he found the words tumbling out before he could control them.  

“Yes, I’m angry at you.  What the fuck was that video?”  The attempt at control wasn’t successful and he winced as he listened to himself speaking, listened to himself desperately trying, and failing, to use as measured a tone as he could despite the expletives which were starting to slip out.  He still held out hope that he could get out of this without losing his cool entirely, but he could feel all control slipping away from him.

“The one about the stupid gifts?” Meg’s voice was disdainful. “They were so …”

“Oh fuck off, they deserved …” Bea said at the same time.

“Yeah that one,” Balthazar said, his voice agitated enough to stun both of them into silence.  “The one where you didn’t even fucking tell me there was a video for me before trashing it all over the internet.  The one where you spoke _for_ me rather than letting me speak for myself.  The one you didn’t even tell me you were making.  That fucking one, yeah.”

“But we thought …”

Balthazar tried to moderate his anger.  Even in the moment, he knew he wasn’t being entirely fair.  But they’d forced him to have this conversation and if he was having it, he was going to let his emotions out.  How worried he was that this had ruined whatever had been beginning to develop with Peter.  How upset he was that they had directed so much of their anger at Peter, who really didn’t seem to deserve it.

“No, you didn’t think, that’s the problem.  You were pissed at Ben,” he said to Bea, his voice now calm he was pleased to note, even while the words themselves still held a bitter bite, “and _you_ were pissed that they didn’t give enough of a shit about you to send you anything,” he added as he turned to Meg.  “And I guess you didn’t want to deal with that too much so you took it out on Peter.  Like … that was shit.  And it was shit that you made it look like I agree with you.  Because I fucking don’t.  And now you’ve ruined it.”

He pushed past the two of them and finally managed to get to his own room.  He felt sick and ashamed that he’d yelled at his friends, particularly because he _knew_ they were hurting too, but it also felt good.  His resentment had been simmering ever since he’d watched the video, and he did harbour that fear now that it was ruined, whatever this thing with Peter was.  What would Peter think when he saw this video?  Not only had they made it look like Balthazar didn’t like the sonnet, they also made out like there was some sort of … sort of _thing_ between him and Vegan Fred.  The thought of what Peter must be feeling right now ate at him.  He’d put himself on the line, and then his friends had trashed his poem and made it look like Balthazar agreed with them.  If he’d been paralysed with panic before, it was nothing to how Balthazar felt now. 

He still knew it couldn’t work; he still knew that making contact would just draw him in, particularly now he _knew_ how Peter felt.  The rules still stood like giant roadblocks in the way.  Balthazar wanted to talk to Peter with an ache that scared him, but the rules … they were always in the fucking way and he was sick of them.  As much as he longed to reach out, he just couldn’t.  Not yet.  Not until they got rid of the stupid things and acted like reasonable people.

And yet – the pull he felt towards Peter was so powerful now he almost let himself give in to it.  He couldn’t do it, though.  Not while the wild rush of heady emotion was still coursing through his body.  He had to step back, cool down and think about this later.  Anything he did or decided tonight would be too rushed, too ill-thought out.  He sighed.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Bea put her head around it.

“Hey.  Can we talk?”

Blushing, embarrassed by the things he’d said earlier, Balthazar nodded.  “Sure.” 

He sat up and Bea came and sat near him on his bed.  She pulled her legs up to her chest and looked at him.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t think,” she said after a long moment.

“I know.  I know you didn’t mean it, and I’m sorry too.  I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“No, I get it.  You’re right, we shouldn’t have spoken for you.  That _was_ wrong.”

Balthazar smiled.  “Yeah it was, but I forgive you.  I know it’s been rough lately, no matter what you said.”

“It’s just hard.”

“I know it is.”

Her lip quivered, and he pulled her into a hug.  They sat like that for several seconds before he realised that she was sniffling into his chest.

“Hey.  It’s okay, Bea.”

Balthazar felt terrible – he’d let his emotions overtake his judgement and this was the result.  His friend was upset and it was at least partly his fault.  He tightened his arm around her as she cried. 

“I know I’m being stupid.  It’s just, I needed to yell at someone and so I did, and it was all wrong and now you hate me …”

“Nah, no I don’t.  You don’t get rid of me that easily.  I shouldn’t have said all that, either.  Let’s just agree we were both wrong and move on?”

“Oh Balth, you’re such an idiot.”

As Balthazar chuckled, he wrapped his other arm around Bea’s shoulders and she allowed her fears to spill out to him.  About how she was worried that Ben was leaving her behind, that she wasn’t important to him.  That if she went on her travels he would forget about her and move on.  Balthazar did his best to reassure her, but it seemed like she most wanted to talk it out, so he let her and only added the occasional comment.

“I don’t get it.  I don’t.  Why fudge?  It’s like he doesn’t care …” she finally wound up.

“I’m sure he does.  He loves you; it’s all he talks about.  He’s just not so good at showing it.”

Bea gave a watery chuckle and pulled back a bit.  “Tell me about it.  God, sorry about weeping all over you.  That’s not why I came in here.”

“It’s fine.  You know you can always talk to me, even if I’ve been angry.  You’re one of my best friends.”

“I know, thank you.”  She wiped her eyes and patted his shoulder.  “Anyway, I wanted you to know I really am sorry.  I’ll … I’ll talk to Peter if you want me to.”

“Nah, it’s okay.”

“I just don’t want to ruin anything for you.”  Her voice quivered again, and Balthazar felt a stab of affection for her.

He smiled at her.  “It’s fine.  I overreacted a bit.  I’ll … we’ll sort it out if it’s meant to be.  It’s not like that video is the only issue.”

“Okay.  Night Balthy.”

“Night Bea.”

She left the room looking happier and Balthazar got himself ready for bed.  This day had been so filled with intense emotions that Balthazar was exhausted and just needed to succumb to blissful sleep for a while.  He needed to sort out his churning thoughts.  Maybe tomorrow things would look different and he could see his way through the mess.  Maybe tomorrow he could work out what was happening and he’d be able to take hold of his happiness, which now seemed so tantalisingly close.


	3. Chapter 3

Balthazar spent the entire next day arguing with himself.  On the one hand, it would be so easy to give in and allow himself to go back.  His heart still thumped with a giddy joy whenever he thought about the sonnet (especially during the very few times he allowed himself to watch it), and the knowledge that Peter felt the same way swamped him with emotions.  On the other hand – the rules still sent shivers of despair through him.  He was too happy without them to willingly put himself back in their way again.  Not even for Peter. 

Now that the first giddy panic had passed, Balthazar watched the sonnet with a more critical eye.  Not critical of the message, obviously; that still shook him whenever he allowed himself to really take it in.  No, critical of the bits that were hidden behind the poem itself.  Petrov – what on earth was that?  Why take on a new persona?  Was Peter not really serious about this?  That thought sent a shiver of fear down Balthazar’s spine.  Peter had said he should talk to Balthazar in person, and until they’d had that conversation, Balthazar just couldn’t bring himself to really believe what the sonnet so clearly implied.  Until he could talk to Peter, in person, with no rules to get in the way, Balthazar just couldn’t let himself believe what was going on.  While part of him knew that _he_ could be the one to reach out, to go over to the flat and talk to Peter, he couldn’t do it.  Not with the rules.

The rules.

The fucking rules.  They were still there, and until they were gone, Balthazar knew any happiness he found would be a shadow of the real thing.  He just couldn’t face that.  So he waited.  Rushing in at this point felt far too risky.

 

By the next morning, Balthazar almost had himself convinced that Peter didn’t really mean what he’d said in the sonnet description.  There had been no texts to ask to meet up, no phone calls, no casual visiting.  And okay, that video Meg posted could have held him back but that wasn’t really like Peter.  It had been days.  Maybe … maybe he did want Balthazar to be the one to initiate the conversation.  Or maybe Peter didn’t want it anymore.  There was no doubting the sincerity in that sonnet, but that video about the gifts … that had been harsh.  And perhaps it had been enough to turn Peter away.  Balthazar spent the morning in an agony of indecision.  Every time he thought he should possibly try to talk to Peter, the intrusive thoughts would appear again and he’d hold off, hoping that maybe Peter might reach out himself first.

By mid-morning, Balthazar had himself convinced that nothing was going to come of whatever was happening with Peter.  He figured that the other flatmates had also decided to leave things well enough alone, and that they would all just keep their distance.  He was so convinced that he was startled when Bea and Meg started freaking out about intruders on the deck and his old flatmates burst into the room followed by a very bewildered Vegan Fred.

Balthazar tried to keep his focus on all his old friends (he was overwhelmingly glad to see them all again, and all seemingly happy too).  But his traitorous eyes were drawn to one person only.  Worse (or maybe better; Balthazar’s brain was shorting out a little and it was hard for him to tell what his feelings actually were), Peter had his eyes fixed on Balthazar.  The intense, focused look in them made Balthazar feel a little weak at the knees whenever he remembered the sonnet (and that was often – the words were seared in his memory and the look now was almost a twin of the one from the video).  The jittery, overwhelming feeling of joy was back when he looked at Peter.  Peter, who was standing in front of him after what felt like a lifetime.  Peter, who radiated control and confidence today.  Peter, whose entire focus seemed to be on Balthazar.  In fact, the spotlight Peter had turned on him was so intense that Balthazar was pleased he was behind the camera, and even more so when Jaquie took it and pushed Meg back a little into Balthazar.  He needed the barrier between Peter and himself.  His heart was tripping, and he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to remain calm and in control if he had to speak to anyone.

“Balthazar!  Balth.  Balthy mate.” Ben’s voice was determined and Balthazar felt his heart sink as he dragged his eyes away from Peter and turned to Ben.

“Hmm?”  Balthazar tried to be as noncommittal as he could in the hopes both that he could control the shaking of his voice and that Ben would back down and leave him alone to silently assess Peter in peace.

“We’re here to rescue you,” Ben said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why exactly do I need rescuing?  I’m … I’m happy here.” 

Obviously, Balthazar had a pretty good idea why they might think he needed rescuing – the way Peter was acting towards Fred was hint enough.  But he also couldn’t quite believe his friends thought so little of him that they thought he couldn’t live his own life without their assistance.

“You cannot be serious!” Freddie broke in.  “What does he have that we don’t have?”

“A functional flat?” Bea cut in.  “People who give a damn about each other without being forced to?  Excellent food?”

Balthazar was grateful to her – her intervention had moved the spotlight away from him.  Well, apart from Peter’s gaze, which was still disconcertingly directed at him.  He was trying his hardest not to look in that direction, but he could _feel_ the eyes on him, never wavering, never letting up.

“But, Stanley,” Freddie said, ignoring Bea.  “This … this fake Fred has brainwashed you all.”

“Um, brainwashed?”  Vegan Fred inquired.  “I did what?”

“He’s not a great guy, okay?  He’s … he’s stolen our friends.  Like … we need to talk about this.”

A surge of annoyance ran through Balthazar as she spoke, and he opened his mouth to retaliate.  But then Freddie ran a hand through her hair and Balthazar noticed that it was shaking a little as she glanced sideways at Kit then turned back to Balthazar with a pleading look on her face.  The annoyance dissipated as he watched her.  She was clearly very wound up about whatever had happened between her and Kit.  So instead, Balthazar tried to be reasonable.

“Look, guys, Vegan Fred’s letting us stay until we find something different, and there’s nothing else to talk about.”

He felt frustrated.  While he still felt surges of anxiety when he thought of the old flat and the life he had left there, and he was annoyed by their attitudes to him and by this conversation in particular, Balthazar realised this wasn’t _all_ his old flatmates’ fault.  Bea and Meg’s stupid video had done this – had planted the idea in them that he was under Fred’s spell or something.  Balthazar let the frustration bleed into his voice as he argued with everyone about the state of their relationship.  The frustration was all directed at Bea and Meg, even though he was talking to Ben and Freddie.  While he had forgiven them for the video, the aftereffects it was causing were enough to remind him of why he’d been so upset about it in the first place.  Balthazar took a deep breath and tried to remain calm, however.

 

He found that he couldn’t look at Peter, not even when he gestured in Fred’s direction and caught a glimpse of Pete out of the corner of his eye as he did so.  As often as he had allowed himself to fantasise about this – about Pete coming here to talk to him – Balthazar hadn’t imagined such an audience, or the camera.  He was desperate to drag Peter off somewhere so they could talk, do the ‘did you mean it?’ conversation, but it was obvious that he still had to get past _this_.  This stupid interrogation about nothing important.  He felt like screaming in frustration, but politeness – and the horrifying knowledge that any raised voice or agitated body language would be caught on camera to live forever – held his tongue.  Balthazar could tell that, even now after he’d explicitly said it, the others didn’t really believe that there was nothing between him and Fred.  He wanted to grab Bea and Meg to shake them and force them to _see_ what they had done with their ill-considered video. 

The moment when his frustration fell away and a surge of hope hit him was when Freddie announced, almost casually, that the rules were gone.  The knowledge was so overwhelming that Balthazar couldn’t speak.  Instead, he tried to communicate with Peter through his body language, even while he still found it a little overwhelming to look right at him.  It didn’t appear to be working (Peter didn’t appear to be picking up on what Balthazar was trying to project, though he was still intensely focused on him) so it was something of a relief when they were all ushered out on to the deck while Fred sorted out some drinks.

 

Later, when Balthazar watched the video back he could see how quickly the pivotal conversation had gone.  But in the moment it felt like it stretched out for minutes, hours … not seconds.  It wasn’t until he was wrapped securely in Peter’s arms that Balthazar allowed himself to really breathe again, to take stock of what had happened.  The giddy sense of joy he’d felt after watching the sonnet had gone, now replaced with a happy, comfortable warmth.  In the last few days he’d forgotten what it was really like to be with Peter.  That it was like coming home.  He’d allowed his head to fret about all the things that could go wrong and hadn’t given himself permission to just _be_ with Peter.

_I love you_.

The words meant so much, and yet here in this hug they also didn’t matter at all.  He’d longed to hear them for so long and yet now they were here and out in the open, it was this that meant the most.  Being held, being cherished.  That was the important part.  Still.  The words _were_ nice.

“I love you.”  Balthazar tested them on his tongue, with no hesitation this time, then laughed a little into Peter’s shoulder as he felt his arms tighten around him.

Peter relaxed a little, just enough to pull back and look in Balthazar’s face as he reluctantly let go too.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”

Balthazar blushed.  “Nah.  Nah, it’s okay.”

“I wish it was, but …”

Balthazar dragged him back into another hug.  “It doesn’t matter.  This, here, now; this is what matters.”

Peter chuckled and tightened his grip again.  “Do you ever stop looking after people?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”  Balthazar grinned into Peter’s shoulder.  “But not often when it’s you.”

Behind him he could hear a commotion.  Voices were becoming raised, and it was becoming harder to concentrate on Peter and the here-and-now.  Reluctantly, Balthazar took a step back, releasing Peter from the hug.  He kept their hands together, though, unwilling to let go and perhaps lose this new happiness.  Peter squeezed his fingers as if to reassure him.  They caught a glimpse of Ben stalking through the door to the kitchen, clearly miserable, and Meg moving to comfort Bea.

“We all feeling better?”

Vegan Fred’s words were the first that Balthazar really registered, and he laughed a little in startled shock as he saw Fred’s face drop.  Bea and Meg were both clearly upset, and Freddie and Kit looked about as shell-shocked as Balthazar felt.  Fred had blithely walked into a very uncomfortable situation.  Taking pity on him, Balthazar dropped Peter’s hand and reached out to Fred.

“Here, let me help you with that,” he said, stepping forward to grab the mugs Fred had brought for all of them.

Balthazar was conscious of the looks both Fred and Peter gave him as he did so, and quite deliberately took two cups and handed one to Peter.  He brushed his fingers over Peter’s as he did so, looking him right in the eye, and Peter’s soft smile in response was enough to make Balthazar’s heart speed up, and for the stiff smile on Fred’s face to become even stiffer.

“Can’t help yourself, can you?” Peter’s voice was low enough that only Balthazar could hear, but he blushed and pushed Peter anyway, making his cocoa slop dangerously in the cup.

“Shut up,” he murmured with another blush.  He found himself staring up at Peter for longer than he’d intended, then shook himself, and whispered, “should we … you know, go after Ben?”

“On it,” Peter said, his phone already in his hand.  “I think this is a job for Paige, don’t you?  She’s good in a crisis.”

Balthazar shook his head at Peter.  “We can’t do that.  Ben needs his friends.”

“Um … I’ll go.  I mean, we’ll go,” Freddie cut in, her voice low and her eyes on Bea.  “You guys should, you know, talk and stuff.”

“But …”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Kit said.  “We already did our talking.  We’ll go chill with Ben.”

He smiled as he squeezed Freddie’s hand, and she stared up at him with a besotted look.  Peter smirked as he shook Kit’s hand.

“Thanks, man.”

Soon, everyone had cleared off the deck, leaving Peter and Balthazar alone.

“I hope Ben and Bea are okay,” Balthazar said, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on his leg as he stood near the edge of the deck staring out at the harbour.

“I think they might be.  They just need time,” Peter said.  He gently took Balthazar’s hand and pressed it to his lips.  “I don’t really want to talk about them now, though.”

“No?”

“Not really.  I can think of better things to talk about.”

Balthazar leaned back against the railing, and grinned.  “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Telling you how much I missed you when you left.”

Balthazar could feel his face heating up and he ducked his head so Peter couldn’t see.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey.  No.  You did the right thing.  I missed you, but it’s obviously been good for you.  You look so much more relaxed.”

Hearing Pete saying that so easily made Balthazar’s eyes well up.  He’d struggled with the idea that he’d done the wrong thing ever since he’d got here, going back and forth on whether leaving _had_ been the right decision.  So hearing someone outside himself, someone who wasn’t invested in tearing his old flat down, telling him he hadn’t done the wrong thing was such a relief.

Sensing his emotions, Peter wrapped his arms around him and whispered, “I’m glad you’re here now, with me.”

“Me too,” Balthazar said as he hugged him back, pleased to note that his voice was firm and confident. 

After standing back a little, Balthazar basked in the look Peter was giving him, soft and fond.

“Are you … do you think you might come back?  To the flat?”  He sounded unsure and Balthazar felt something inside his chest twist again.  He swallowed before answering.

“I think so, yeah.  But maybe not tonight.  I should sort stuff out here, and …” Balthazar shrugged, feeling uncomfortable.  “It kind of feels rude to just duck out right away.  I kind of want to say thank you.”

Peter’s face dropped, but he nodded.  “Yeah, makes sense.” 

“You don’t have to go right away, though?”

The idea of letting Pete out of his sight caused a slight sensation of panic to rise in his chest, and Balthazar looked down to try to get himself under control.  He still wasn’t used to having to hide his every feeling from Peter to try to protect them a little.

“Nah, I don’t.  So long as Fred’s happy for us to crash here, I guess.”

“He’ll be fine.”  Balthazar caught Peter’s sceptical look and smiled.  “He really isn’t a bad guy, honestly.  Took the hint really well a few days back.”

“Mmmm. I’m not sure he’s given up, but I’ll believe you – you have a better understanding of the guy than I do.”

They had turned around, and were leaning looking out at the harbour before them again.  Their crossed arms were so close their fingertips were brushing.  Every time Peter rubbed his finger against Balthazar’s his heart sped up again.  He was finding it a little hard to breathe, if he were totally honest with himself.  On impulse, he reached across and kissed Peter’s cheek, making him grin as he turned a little to look at Balthazar.

The look in Peter’s eyes changed subtly from amusement to flirtation.  Balthazar allowed himself to give in to his next impulse and kissed him again.  Somehow, by the time they broke apart several long moments later, their arms were wrapped around each other again and Balthazar’s fingers had drifted to the point where Peter’s hair met his neck.  Feeling the hairs, rough under his fingers the way he’d always imagined they’d feel, made this suddenly real in a way it hadn’t been until this moment.  He let out a breathy laugh and buried his head in Peter’s shoulder again.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he said.

Peter laughed.  “I _have_ been trying to tell you for a long time now.”

Balthazar shrugged.  “I couldn’t let myself believe it.”

“I know.  And the stupid rules didn’t help.”

“The rules.”  Balthazar grinned as he remembered.  “They’re really gone?”

“They’re really gone.”  He could feel Peter’s nod against his cheek and shivered at the contact.

“I still feel like we’re doing something wrong …”

“Yeah, it took a day or so for the rules being gone to sink in.  I came home after ten one night absolutely petrified that Freddie would grab me and make me do pushups or something.”

Balthazar laughed, feeling free and happy.  He pulled back a little so he could see Peter better, but didn’t let go.  “She can be pretty scary.”

“The scariest.”

They held each other for another long moment before a sound from inside drew their attention.  Balthazar stepped back a little, self-conscious.

“We should maybe go somewhere?”

“I know you don’t want to leave here tonight, but you could come over for dinner?  We could totally destroy the rules with vegan Tuesday, and you could even stay past ten.”

Balthazar chuckled.  “That’s so rebellious,” he teased.

“That’s me – Pete the rebel.”

“So much chaos in such a compact person …”

“Hey!  I’m a perfectly good size for causing chaos.”  Peter pretended to be offended, but laughed again and pulled Balthazar into him.  “You know creating chaos is my mission in life.”

“And you do it so well.”

Peter preened, his eyes alight with happiness and Balthazar laughed again, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling of being with Peter.  They had always had fun together, and he was relieved that they weren’t awkward now things had changed, and after the time they’d spent apart.  The ease that had always characterised their relationship, particularly before this year became so stressful, was still present and it allowed Balthazar to really relax.

In the end, they decided to go somewhere for lunch and then take the rest of the afternoon as it came.  It struck Balthazar as they left Fred’s house that he was feeling even lighter than he had since he’d left the flat.  Not only was the tension created by the rules gone, but the lingering feeling that he should be doing more to get past the Peter thing was now, quite obviously, not torturing him either.  He couldn’t stop grinning as Peter took his hand while they walked down to a nearby Boyet’s to eat.

 

Entering the flat after so long away was an odd feeling.  It was like it was two places at once: home, the place he’d lived for months mostly happily, and not-home, the place he’d felt trapped in and smothered by.  Balthazar drew in one deep, sharp breath as he crossed the threshold again.  He wasn’t coming home, not yet, so the weird feeling of dissonance remained.  Behind him, Peter laughed softly and laid a reassuring hand on his back.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.  Yeah.  It’s just a bit more than I expected.”

He stepped carefully into the room and took it all in.  Everything was still in its place.  The dalek poster was still on the wall surrounded by fairy lights, the books still sat haphazardly on the shelves, the couches sat in much the same way they had the entire year.  And yet, it felt like so much else had changed.  Peter took his hand, and Balthazar turned to smile at him.  To be fair, things had mostly changed for the better so Balthazar wasn’t about to complain.  It had just taken him by surprise, how unsettling coming back here had been.  He felt like a very different person to the one who had left here even the day of the sword fight.

He said as much, and Peter squeezed his hand.

“I think we all learned a bit along the way – like how not to be dickheads.”

“No-one was a dickhead, not really,” Balthazar said as he moved to put his arms around Peter.

“I was,” a soft voice said from the door to Ben’s room.

“Hey, Ben.” Balthazar smiled at him, reluctantly pulling away from Peter.  Then added, “You weren’t a dickhead.”

“Yeah.  Yeah I was.”

“Nah, Ben.  I’m not saying you didn’t do some really stupid things, but that doesn’t make you a dickhead.”

“It makes me a loner.  Lovely little loser loner.”

Balthazar crossed the room and reached out to him, noticing in passing that Peter had taken the other side and had an arm around Ben’s shoulder.

“No, no.  You have friends, you have skills; you’ve got this.”

Ben smiled weakly.  “Thanks for trying, guys, but I know I fucked up and I lost … like, the most important stuff.”

Balthazar caught Peter’s eye over Ben’s head as they steered him to the couch.  He raised his brows and Peter nodded.  He moved towards the kitchen, and Balthazar slid onto the couch next to Ben.  There were things he knew they needed to talk about, things he really hadn’t forgiven Ben for, but he also knew now was not the time to twist the knife in.  That conversation could wait.

“Ben, you know that deep down inside you don’t believe that.  You still have all that stuff.”

“Bea …” Ben’s voice choked as he said her name.

Balthazar pulled him into a hug.  “She’s not gone.  You know Bea – she’ll calm down soon enough.  Then you could like talk about it and work things out.  Just … maybe leave it for a bit, yeah?”

“Maybe.” 

The tone was morose, and there was none of the usual exuberant manner Balthazar was so used to.  It hurt more than he’d expected to see Ben like this.  He’d imagined Ben’s chickens coming home to roost, yeah, but not like this.  For all Ben had done some misguided things, Balthazar knew his heart was in the right place, so seeing him like this really did hurt.  Balthazar had wanted Ben to realise he’d done some stupid things, and maybe apologise, but he’d never wanted him _this_ unhappy.  He looked up as Peter came back in with three mugs of tea, grateful for the reprieve from the maudlin direction his thoughts were heading.  Balthazar took his tea and set it aside so he could press Ben’s into his hands and close his fingers around it.

“We should watch a movie or something,” Peter suggested once they were all sitting and an uneasy quiet had settled over them.  “We haven’t seen _Marlowe in Love_ for weeks.  I almost miss it.”

That got a small smile from Ben, who shrugged.  Peter seemed to take that as agreement and went to get his laptop and the DVD.  Balthazar sat sipping his tea and looking around.

“I’m … it’s good to have you back, Balth.  We … I missed you.”

Ben’s voice was so quiet, Balthazar almost missed it.  He turned to smile at his friend.

“I missed you guys, too.”

As he said it, Balthazar realised how true it was.  The entire time he’d been at Fred’s he’d been building a life around a flat-shaped hole in his heart, and he hadn’t even realised it.  He was angry and upset by turns.  He’d eventually became comfortable and at ease and even had those moments of happiness.  But he was never truly, actually content.  And now he understood why.  It wasn’t just Peter, either.  It was all of this – the flat, the people, even the long walk up the hill.  It was the life they’d had when they first got to Wellington, the life they’d seemed to regain once the rules were set up.  But in hindsight, that had just been a mask for the problems that were still there.

As he watched Peter come back with the computer and start setting everything up, Balthazar knew they really did have to have a conversation.  The rules may be gone, but the underlying issues could still be there.  This time, they should start right.  Build a flat based on mutual respect.  Speaking of which …

“Where are Freddie and Kit?”

They’d been supposed to stick with Ben and make sure he didn’t spend the afternoon moping.  Balthazar felt a stab of guilt as Peter slid into the seat beside him.  Perhaps they shouldn’t have gone out by themselves – it was obvious Ben had needed someone, and it looked like they had let him down.  Before his thoughts got too carried away, however, Ben answered.

“They went to get something to eat.  ‘Bout half an hour ago.  I wasn’t hungry so I just stayed here.”

Balthazar squeezed his arm.  “It’ll be okay, Ben.”

Ben nodded, the movement mechanical and unconvincing, but he did settle back to watch the movie once Peter got it up and running.

The rest of the evening was good.  Peter and Balthazar had brought dinner home, and they finally managed to convince Ben to eat a little with them. Then they curled up on the couch together, all three of them, and it was almost like old movie nights in the flat except that there was Peter right next to Balthazar.  Where he usually was, yes, but this time the brushing of hands was deliberate, and Balthazar allowed himself to relax into the arm that went around his shoulder.  This time, when he got tired he leaned comfortably on Peter and felt the soft brush of lips on his hair.  This time, there was no aching longing.  This time, when the movie was over, Balthazar didn’t immediately excuse himself to his bedroom to study.  This time, unfortunately, he also had to leave.

But this time, Peter walked him outside.  This time, he got a goodnight kiss that was so toe-curlingly sweet he almost changed his mind and stayed.  Instead, when they broke apart he wrapped his arms around Peter and sighed into his shoulder.

“I’ll miss you tonight,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“When do you think …?”

“I’ll come back?  I dunno.  Tomorrow maybe.  Or Thursday.”

Peter kissed him again, pulling him closer and cupping his face with one hand.  Balthazar shivered when they pulled apart again.  “Okay, definitely tomorrow.”

Peter’s low laugh thrummed through his body as he dragged himself away.  “I do have to go now, though.  Should check on Bea and make sure Fred’s not left in the lurch in any way.”

“Yeah, you go.  The faster you go, the faster you’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You’re a giant sap, you know that?”

“You love it.”

“Yeah, I kind of do.  Okay.”  He pressed one more kiss to Peter’s lips before stepping back.  “I’m definitely leaving now.”

“I’ll text you, okay?”

“Okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

The chirping buzz of his phone was enough to rouse Balthazar the next morning.  The first thing he’d done when he got back from the flat the previous night had been to pull his phone out from where it was buried in the nightstand drawer, and plug it in.  Almost as soon as he’d plugged it in and switched it on, the notifications from the last few weeks began to arrive.  The first one startled him, making him jump as the phone bounced on the nightstand.  They had kept coming, a flood of them rushing in and swamping his phone.  Those first increasingly frantic texts from Peter the night he’d left hurt Balthazar a little now.  He’d had to choke back his guilty feelings when he thought about how he’d ignored everyone’s concerns in favour of his own wellbeing. 

This morning, there was a moment of panic as the buzz of the phone reminded Balthazar of all the things he should have done, and he went cold when he thought of all the ways things could have gone very badly wrong.  But, he reminded himself, they didn’t go wrong and maybe this was the way things had been meant to happen.  Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to be this happy if this had happened in any other way.

Shaking his thoughts off with a languid stretch, Balthazar reached over to his phone to check the new message. 

_Morning!_

Balthazar grinned.  _Morning yourself_ , he shot back.  He lay back to wait for Pete’s next message, phone in his hand.

“I’m happy for you.”

“Huh?”

Balthazar looked over to the other bed, where Kit was smiling at him.  He waved a hand indicating the general vicinity of Balthazar.

“You and Peter.  I’m glad.”

Blushing, Balthazar smiled.  He still wasn’t used to ‘him and Peter’ being a thing people could be pleased about.

“Thanks.  I’m happy for you, too.”

“Ah, you know how it is.  You try to stay mad at them, but they look at you and you just … can’t.”

“Yeah.”

His phone buzzed in his hand.

_D’ya need help getting sorted?  I could help you pack_

_Pete it’s barely 8.  ‘m not even up_

_Even better.  I’m on my way_

Balthazar laughed out loud as he messaged back. He heard Kit’s amused chuckle and startled.  He’d forgotten he was even there.

“Shit!”

Kit laughed again.  “You got it bad, boy.”

“You can talk.”

Kit shrugged, conceding the point.

“So, you gonna stay here in vegan paradise, or …?” he asked Balthazar with a smile.

Balthazar smiled back.  “Nah.  I’m gonna head home.” He felt a flush of warmth as he called the flat ‘home’ again.  “None of the reasons for leaving matter anymore, so.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“It feels weird, though.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah.  Like a dream.  One of those really weird ones where random stuff happens and it makes sense in the dream, but when you wake up, like … it doesn’t make any sense anymore.  That’s this year.  Like, it made sense when it was happening, or maybe it felt like it.  But now … it kinda doesn’t.”

“It was a goddamn mess,” Kit agreed.  He stretched and made a pleased sound as his muscles loosened.  “But it all ended okay.”

“Yeah, true.”

But Balthazar determined to make sure it didn’t end in some sort of mess again.  When Peter arrived at a much more respectable hour, Balthazar dragged him inside and sat him down on a nearby couch.  He noticed idly that it was the one Bea and Meg had used when they made their awful video and grimaced.

“What’s up?”  Peter’s question punched through his thoughts and made him jump a little.

“We need to talk.”

Peter’s face immediately went ashen and he dragged an unconvincing smile into place.

“No, no.  Not like that!” Balthazar put his hand on Peter’s knee in an attempt to reassure him.  “That’s part of why we need to talk.  We … like.  There’s this history, you know.  Where we do this thing.”  He caught Peter’s amused gaze and realised that he was rambling.  “Anyway, you know it’s true,” he finished.

“What’s true?”

“That we sometimes misunderstand, or maybe misinterpret, each other.  And we need to stop assuming things.  So.”

“Okay.”

Balthazar started with the easy bit, the bit that used to seem so hard.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Balthazar smiled as he heard the words.  He thought perhaps he’d never get used to that – to the easy way Peter let them roll off his tongue.  He didn’t let it distract him from the point, however.

“But that’s the easy bit, the love.  That’s always been there.  It’s the other stuff …”

Peter looked puzzled, and Balthazar felt his confident energy seeping away.  But he reminded himself that this was _Peter_ , and if he couldn’t talk to Peter, then … well.

“I’m sorry.”  Peter’s voice cut into his thoughts again.

“What?”

“I fucked up a lot this year, and I’m sorry for it.”

“Thanks,” Balthazar said wryly.  “But what exactly do you need to apologise for?”

“Everything.  Nothing.  Just …” Peter ran his hand through his hair, obviously frustrated.

“There’s a big difference between everything and nothing.”  Balthazar smiled, teasing.  “And I’m sorry, too.”

“Why are you sorry?  You did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah I did.  We both did.  This isn’t all on you, or all on me.  This is on both of us.”

Peter smiled at him.  “I guess so.”

“I know so.  Look, I know I can be too quiet sometimes.  I know I don’t say the things I think enough.  I know that.  And I know that’s been part of the problem.”

“It hasn’t …”

“Pete.  Please.”  Balthazar allowed the exasperation to bleed into his voice and Peter laughed.

“Okay, sure.  But I love that about you.”

Balthazar leaned over to kiss Peter.  “I know you do, and I appreciate that.  But, I still think we need to be more open.  No more secrets.”

“No more secrets.”

“So, you know, I’ll actually tell you how annoying your stinky cologne is...”

“Hey!  My cologne is amazing.”

Peter’s faux-offended tone made Balthazar laugh.  He leaned his head on Peter’s shoulder and sighed in contentment.

“You’re amazing.”  He kissed Peter under his jaw and smiled as he felt the shiver run through him.  “I can put up with the cologne for you.”

Peter’s arm tightened around his shoulder and he smiled.  “You want to go get packed?  I have a sudden urge to go home.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, let’s do that.”

 

Later, as they were getting the final few bits of Balthazar’s things into a bag, Fred arrived home.

“You’re really going, then?”

Balthazar flinched a little at the implications of that comment – that he would rethink overnight and realise he really wanted to stay at Fred’s.  But he didn’t want to leave on bad terms, so he answered casually.

“Yeah.  I am.”  Balthazar smiled at the other man.  “Thanks for having me.  I don’t know what I could have done without your friendship these last few weeks.”

Beside him, Balthazar could see a brief scowl creep onto Peter’s face.  Hoping Fred hadn’t seen it, or couldn’t read Peter as well as he could, Balthazar slid his arm around Peter’s waist and smiled at him.  Fred smiled, too, though it looked a little strained.

“You’re welcome.  It’s been … it’s been a real pleasure having you here.  It’s nice to have another vegan around.”

“Nah, I was never that good a vegan.  But your food has been wonderful; you’re an excellent host.”

“Any time, Balth.”

“Well, thanks again.  I … uh …” Balthazar trailed off, unsure what to say, how to end this properly.

“I really mean it.  _Any_ time.”

“I know, thanks.”

Balthazar kept his natural smile up as Fred left the room, then sagged a little against Peter. 

“I feel so guilty,” he said once Fred was out of earshot.

“What for?”

Peter looked genuinely puzzled and Balthazar snorted.

“For … I dunno.”  He shrugged, then steeled himself.  No secrets, right?  Even when your thoughts seemed so stupid when you tried to put them into speech.  “I feel like I took advantage a bit.  I mean, I knew how he felt, kinda.”

“Balth, I don’t think you ever took advantage of anyone.  It’s like not in your DNA or something.”

“I’m trying to be serious here!”

“So am I.  Okay, look.  Think about it a bit.  Did you ever like lead him on or anything?”

“I don’t … I don’t know?  Maybe?  It was so nice, you see.  It was uncomplicated and easy, not like …”

He flushed, and Peter squeezed his waist then gave him a light kiss on his temple.

Ignoring the implications of Balthazar’s last words, Peter said, “I’m pretty sure you didn’t, Balth.  That’s really not who you are.  If you felt something, you felt something and that’s okay.”

Balthazar ran a frustrated hand through his hair.  “That’s just it, though.  I feel like maybe I wanted to feel something but never really did?”

“So why didn’t anything happen?”

“Because … because I realised I didn’t want anything to happen and pulled it all back in.”

“So, you didn’t lead him on, then.” Peter shrugged.  “Don’t worry about it.”

Feeling a little less uneasy at the way he was leaving Fred’s home, though still not convinced he hadn’t been at least a little unfair in his treatment of his host, Balthazar gathered his things and took one last look at the room.  He left a small envelope with some money to cover his rent on the dresser, along with a note thinking Fred again for his hospitality.

“I think I’m not really going to miss it,” he said as he straightened up.

“Not even the thousand thread count sheets and the vegan, masterchef-quality food?”

Balthazar laughed, thankful that Peter had pulled it all back to the light teasing tone they’d been using earlier.  “Not even those.  This has been nice, but I want to go home.”

“Home.”  Peter smiled at the word.  “Let’s go home, then.”

 

Coming home this time was easier.  Freddie and Kit were both there and Ben had disappeared into his bedroom.  It was almost the way it had been when Kit had been staying in the tent, though with added cuddling.

Peter smirked at the two of them as he walked in.

“You two look cosy.”

Freddie flushed, but Kit just laughed.  “No shame in that, Peter Donaldson.”

“Too true,” Peter said, picking up Balthazar’s guitar from where he’d set it down to shut the door behind them.  “We’ll be right back.”

“You don’t have to justify your whereabouts anymore, Peter.”

“I know, but it’s just polite yeah?”

Freddie nodded thoughtfully as Peter led the way to Balthazar’s bedroom and pushed open the door.  The whiteboard read ‘welcome home, Balthy’ in Ben’s handwriting and Balthazar felt his heart clench just a little.  For all that Ben had done some very stupid and thoughtless things he really did mean well, and that made a lot of difference to Balthazar.  He knew he needed to talk to Ben, but he felt less annoyed and frustrated, and more hopeful the longer time went on.  He now genuinely thought this flat could work together as a team again.

He sighed a little as he put the bag down on his bed and looked around.  All his stuff looked exactly the way he’d left it those few weeks ago.  It felt a little weird coming back here, but it also felt nice.  He felt arms around his waist and he leaned back into Peters embrace, allowing his hands to slide on top of Peter’s.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“I am too.”

He turned around to face Peter, still a little awed that he could actually do this.  He opened his mouth to say as much and Peter kissed him.  He huffed out a laugh against his lips before allowing himself to melt into the moment.  Peter pulled back a little to kiss his temple before taking his hand and heading back towards the door.

Ben had emerged from his room by the time they returned and he gave them a slight smile as they entered the lounge.  They sat down side by side on the unoccupied couch and Peter laughed.

“I feel like we should be doing a challenge or something.”

Freddie shuddered.  “No, thank you.  No more challenges.  Being chased out of that dairy by that Russian guy was enough to last me a lifetime.”

“Ah, you loved it really,” Peter said, with a smirk.  “That was the beginning of the end after all.  You can’t tell me you don’t miss it all, just a little bit?”

“I really can,” Freddie said, tucking herself more tightly into Kit’s side.  “That was …” she shuddered again.

“It may sound odd, but I miss it a bit,” Balthazar said quietly.  “It was a bit weird living in a flat where there was none of that stuff.”

“You feel like doing one for old time’s sake?” Peter teased and Balthazar bumped his leg with his own.

“I didn’t say that.”

“We could, if you wanted to,” Ben said, his voice still quieter than usual.  “But it might be nice to … to maybe talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“About … about how bad things got, you know.  With the rules.”

Balthazar’s breath caught in his throat and he shared a long glance with Peter.  He did want to talk, clear the air a bit, and if Ben were the one suggesting it, then maybe it would be a good time.  But Ben wasn’t in the strongest place emotionally, and Balthazar felt like it might not be entirely fair to him if they did this now.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kit asked, as if echoing Balthazar’s thoughts.  “You guys don’t have the greatest history with discussion.”

Freddie turned to glare up at him, and he held his hands up, before adding, “You know it’s true.  Setting up the rules, not getting rid of the rules … not to mention other, more personal discussions.”

His pointed glance wasn’t lost on Balthazar, who flushed and looked at his hands.  What Kit was saying was true, and he was concerned about the timing but he still felt like they did need to talk about things.  Otherwise, there was every chance that any issues _would_ fester again and they’d be right back where they started.  If they didn’t talk now, when they were all here and somewhat willing, then would the opportunity pass them by?  He could see Freddie gearing up to challenge Kit and felt a sudden need to say something himself.  Before he could, however, Peter had started talking.

“It’s a good idea. No, hear me out,” he said as Freddie opened her mouth.  “Kit being here will help – he’s a somewhat neutral outside party …”

“Not all that neutral,” Ben said, with a little more of his usual verve.

“More neutral than any of us.”

“I think we should talk,” Balthazar cut in, emboldened by the knowledge that most of the others agreed with him.  “I just … I feel like if we don’t say anything we could end up the same way again, and I don’t … I didn’t like it.”  He took a breath and added, “and I think Kit should be here too.  Pete’s right – he can make sure we don’t, like, fight about it or something.”

“I see how it’s going to be – you two uniting against the rest of us,” Freddie said, but there was a smile in her voice and Balthazar smiled at her.

“So are we agreed?” Ben asked, uncharacteristically reticent.  “Pete?  Balth?  You two want to talk?”

“Yeah,” they both agreed at once.

“Kit?”

“I guess, so long as we agree to stop if anyone gets unhappy with whatever we’re doing.”

“Sounds fair,” Peter agreed and Balthazar nodded, quickly followed by Ben.

“Freddie?  That just leaves you?”

“Yeah, I’m fine with it.” She sighed.  “We probably all have things we need to say.  Who’s, um ... who’s going first?”

“I will,” Peter said.  “That’s if you guys don’t mind.”

Once they’d all agreed, Peter stood up and paced a little.  “Okay, so first, I just want to say I love you guys.  You’re all good mates, and we have good times together, right?  So, that’s important.  I don’t want to upset anyone.  But you know.  There are a couple of things that have kind of bugged me.”

He stopped and turned to look at them, smiling at Balthazar before turning a more serious look on the others.

“I guess the biggest one is that I felt really judged for the way I was living my life at the start of the year.”

“I didn’t mean to judge, honest …” Ben started, and Freddie protested at the same time but Kit held his hands up.

“See, this?  This is why I didn’t think this was a good idea,” he said.  “But you guys, if we’re doing this, you’ve got to let people say their piece.”  He waved his hand at Peter, encouraging him to continue.

“Yeah, well.  Okay.  Look, I know I was an inconsiderate arse, I know that.  I shouldn’t have been so obnoxious about it, but I felt really bad every time one of you would give me this look like I was somehow doing something wrong.  And got defensive and acted like a dick, which I am really sorry for.  I just … I know that’s not a thing anymore,” he added, smiling at Balthazar who ducked his head, feeling overwhelmed, “but it felt rotten, and I just wanted you to know.”

“Buddy, we’re sorry.  Right, guys?”  Ben looked small and contrite as he looked around at the others.  “I think I made it worse.  I was trying to help, I really was, but I think I did it wrong.”

Peter knelt down beside Ben, and forced him to look at him.  He patted him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, I know you were trying and I know I reacted badly too.  But you’re my friend, you know that?”  When Ben nodded, Peter continued.  “I’d just like you to, I don’t know, keep out of my life in future.  Not, like, not being friends or whatever,” he said when he saw Ben start to curl up into himself, giving him a smile and another pat on the shoulder.  “But don’t decide you know best for me – let me fuck up, let me make my own mistakes.  Let me be me, okay?  And don’t judge whatever I want to do just because it’s not what you would do.”

Ben nodded, looking small.  “Okay.”

Balthazar swallowed, feeling anxious.  While he felt like Peter probably needed to say these things, he was worried about the way Ben was looking – sad, diminished and cornered.  He realised what that must have felt like for Ben to hear and he reached out to place a hand on his shoulder.  Ben smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.  Suddenly it felt a little early to be having this discussion – he just wanted the flat to be a happier, more open, place but there was a tension in the air now that suggested that this conversation wasn’t going to end well.  He caught Peter’s eye and lifted his brows, hoping he would take the hint and pull back a bit.  Giving Balthazar a slight nod Peter turned back to Ben with a grin.

“And I still want to be Peter.  Pedro seems so … he was so young and a bit stupid.  I don’t feel the same way about last year anymore, but I still don’t feel like Pedro is the right fit, okay?  Like, I don’t hate it and I won’t be upset if you use it. It’s more that I prefer Peter, if that’s okay.”

When Ben nodded his agreement, Peter held his hand out to him.  When he took it, Peter pulled him out of his seat and into a hug, and Balthazar felt tears stinging at his eyes as he watched the two of them together.  There had been so much tension between them for so much of the year that seeing them like this made him feel so happy.  He laced his fingers with Peter’s when Peter sat down again, giving him a small smile and bumping his leg.  Peter grinned back, looking much happier than he had in a long time.  The tension in the room had faded a little, but Balthazar himself still felt a little tense.

“Can I say something?” Freddie asked.

When the others nodded, she continued. 

“I think I stuck so hard to the rules because none of you were very good at routines.  It used to drive me batty when you didn’t do the things I asked you to.”

Peter quirked his brow at her and she blushed.  “Okay, okay.  Maybe I demanded a bit.  But I like my routines and having things in order, and before the rules things just weren’t …”

“No kidding,” Ben snorted, but subsided at a look from Kit.

“I guess my biggest worry now is that we’ll go back to chaos.  No rules, no routine, you know?” 

She looked so anxious that Balthazar felt he had to try to settle her nerves.  After all, he was feeling much the same way.  Without the rules it felt like there was so much scope for things to fall apart again.

“I think we can all agree that some routines are useful, right?”  He looked around and the others nodded.  “I mean, we need to do our chores, but we should maybe have a bit more say in who does what.”

“I think that was the biggest problem from before, yeah,” Peter agreed.  “We should work out what needs to be done and figure out who would be best at which ones.”

Freddie nodded, then sighed.  “I guess I just wanted to say sorry.  I’m sorry I broke the rules so much and got on everyone’s cases about it.  I’m sorry I tried to be in control so much.  I’ll … I’ll try to be better now.”

Kit pulled her closer in beside him and gave her hair a small kiss.  “I’ll try to help you with that, too.”

She smiled up at him, and Ben looked away suddenly seeming very sad. 

“And the rest of us will … I don’t know.  We’ll try not to be total slobs,” Peter added.

“It was actually kind of nice to have some sort of routine,” Ben said.  “I mean, the rules were good for a while, right?  Just because it felt like things were in order for once.  So I guess I’m saying, Freddie, that you being a control freak isn’t all bad.”

Freddie smiled at him and Balthazar felt the tears stinging his eyes again.  It felt so good to see everyone getting along again, even in a situation like this one.  He sat immersed in his own thoughts for so long that Peter had to squeeze Balthazar’s hand, encouraging him to say something.

“Oh.” He looked around at everyone’s expectant faces.  “I … uh.  I guess, my worries aren’t as big as those.  I’m mostly, I guess … I don’t much like being filmed.”

“But you were always so fine with it!” Ben cried, looking worried.

“Yeah, but things happened.” 

Balthazar flushed again as he remembered the punishment for the _Stay_ footage, and he could see Ben blanch as he remembered too.

“Things happened and I stopped being so fine with it.”

“But at Fred’s house!  You were in that video.”  Freddie’s voice held a certain measure of surprise, and Balthazar felt like he needed to explain.

“Yeah, but they asked first.  All I’m saying is that I don’t want to be in any videos without being asked first and seeing anything that gets put online.  I don’t … vlogging hasn’t been much fun this year.  For me.  And I don’t want to anymore, not without more input.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Peter.  “I’m going to say what Balthazar won’t because he’s too nice.  Punishing us like that was shit and we want to be sure nothing like that can happen again.”

Balthazar looked at his hands, but not before he noticed as Ben’s face went even whiter. 

“I’m sorry guys,” Ben said, staring at the hands twisting in his lap.  “I tried to make it up, but …”

“But you just tried to make up for any embarrassment.  That wasn’t the real problem.”  Peter’s voice was firm, but Balthazar could feel his hand shaking in his own.  He squeezed it, trying to reassure Peter.

“Yeah, the real problem was that we had no say in it.  That was personal and it felt like a … maybe a bit of an invasion of privacy?”  Balthazar was worried that he wasn’t saying things the way he wanted to.  It was important that Ben realise he was upset about how the filming and posting had happened, not at Ben himself.  But he could feel the words babbling out of him, and by the look on Ben’s face he wasn’t having the desired effect.  He opened his mouth again to try to say something to help Ben see, but Peter beat him to it.

“It didn’t just feel like that, Balth; it _was_.”  There was a hint of steel in Peter’s voice which made Ben wince.

“Ben, look,” Balthazar said, sitting forward and laying a hand on Ben’s arm.  “I don’t … I’m sure _we_ don’t, you know, want to make you feel worse than you already do, but I just need people to understand.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben whispered.  “I’m sorry.  I need … I don’t think I can do this anymore right now.”

He stood up and headed for his room.  Peter opened his mouth and Balthazar shook his head at him.

“We should let him go.  I know we don’t mean it this way, but it probably feels like a bit of an attack on him.  I’ll … um, I’ll go talk to him later.”

 

Later, when Balthazar knocked on Ben’s door, he got a small, “what do you want?”

“Ben?  Can we talk?  Just us?”

There was a rustling sound and a heavy clunk before Ben said, in a slightly stronger voice, “okay.”

Balthazar pushed open the door and his heart sagged at what he saw.  Ben was sitting in the middle of his unmade bed, with his hair plastered to his head and red-rimmed eyes.  He was hugging his ram and curled into a protective ball.

Balthazar crossed over and sat next to him.

“I’m sorry, Ben.”

“No.  No.  I deserved it.”

“You know it’s not really about blame, right?  We…  Well, me really.  I want to be sure we can stay happy as a flat.  I don’t want things to be the way they were before.”

“I know.  It’s still my fault, though.”

“Nah, it’s really not.  I mean, it is, yeah,” he said quickly as Ben opened his mouth to argue.  “But it’s not _just_ you.  It was all of us.  It was not talking, not saying what needed to be said.”

Balthazar ran a hand through his hair.  This was hard, harder than he’d expected.  Some of the things he was forcing himself to say were skirting awfully close to confrontation and, much as he’d realised that things had to change, that didn’t mean he was comfortable with this sort of conversation yet.  He sighed.

“I am sorry, Ben.  I’m still not used to … to saying what I think so much, and so I think I was a bit too blunt.  I didn’t mean to imply you were the only one to blame.”

“It’s okay, Balthy.  I was watching the videos again and I think I see what you mean.”  He indicated the laptop, which had slid to the floor, and was presumably the source of the clunk Balthazar had heard when he was coming in.  “I thought it was fun, you know?  That everyone must love vlogging as much as I do.  I couldn’t understand why you all didn’t … why you weren’t as keen as I was.”

The sadness in his voice made Balthazar’s heart clench again. 

“It wasn’t all bad, you know?  I liked some of it, for a while.  The challenges were fun, mostly.”

Ben grinned, looking a bit more like his old self.  “We did have some epic times, and it was good to film them.  Have them to look back on.”  He sounded desperate, as if he needed reassurance that his filming wasn’t always awful for the others.

Balthazar cracked a reluctant grin.  “Yeah, you’re right.  Some things are good to remember.” 

He blushed, thinking about the events of yesterday and how often he’d watched the footage Jaquie had put up last night, and Ben noticed.  He poked him in the side.

“You guys are really cute, by the way.”

“Um … thanks.  I think.”

“Cute is good.  I’m happy for you, but it took you much longer than it should have.”

Balthazar gaped at him, unable in the moment to form any words, and Ben sat back in confusion.

“What?  What did I say?”

“It’s not like things taking time was entirely our fault …”

“Oh.”  Ben looked contrite again, then added, “I really am sorry, you know.”

“I know.  It’s okay.”

“It got a bit out of hand, I know.  But I felt … I felt like nothing without the rules and the filming and like no-one could like me if I didn’t have it, and …”

Ben trailed off, his face set in a frown, and Balthazar didn’t say anything, but instead pulled him in for a hug.  They sat that way for a long while, with Ben obviously trying to hold himself together.  Eventually Balthazar pulled back and looked at Ben.

“You know that’s not true.  You are so much more than just the filming.”

“I don’t know anymore.  It’s ruined everything, but if I don’t have my viewers I don’t have anything.”

“Ben, you still have us.  You have your friends, you have your family and your humour and generosity and passion.”

“I don’t have Bea.  I don’t have uni, and I know my parents are really upset that I quit.  It’s the last thing that’s good.  It just is.”

“You said it yourself – it stopped being so good.  And okay, a lot of that was the rules.  But, you know, the filming … it’s not what makes you you.”

Ben huffed, apparently unconvinced and Balthazar sighed.

“You don’t believe me.  I get it.  But, maybe … think about it?”

Ben sighed too and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“Anyway, I wanted you to know we’re not mad at you.  Not really.  We just want the flat to be a nicer place this time.  You know?  And to do that we all need to talk.  ”

“Yeah I get it.  Thanks, buddy.”

“No problem.  I’ll leave you alone now.  But we’re here for you, you know?  Just yell if you want something.  And if, you know, you want to talk to everyone too.  You must have stuff too …”

Ben nodded.  He seemed less upset than he had been when Balthazar arrived, but he wasn’t sure if he’d managed to get across the important ideas.  Balthazar slid out of the room and heaved a sigh as he closed the door behind him.

“Rough, huh?” Peter said as he came up behind him.

“Nah, not too bad.  Just … I don’t like seeing him like that, and he’s not really happy even though he’s trying.  I wish there was something I could do.”

Peter laughed.  “You really can’t help yourself, can you?”

“Like you don’t want to help,” Balthazar said, pushing Peter.

Peter sobered.  “Yeah.  I do have an idea, though.  Do you think Meg might help me with something if I asked nicely enough?”

“I dunno.  She’s been pretty pissed off with you guys.  Why?”

“I need Bea to watch something.”

Balthazar’s eyes lit up.  “She might help – I can ask her if you’d like.”

He wrapped his arms around Peter and closed his eyes as he allowed himself to relax.  It had been a long, and uncomfortable, day but being here seemed natural and he could feel the tension seeping out of him as he hugged Peter. 

“Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

“Pete, it’s barely nine.” Balthazar laughed as he looked at his boyfriend.

“I know, but you look shattered and if you were anything like me you didn’t sleep much last night.”

Balthazar took a deep breath as he realised Peter was right.  He’d slept badly last night, too overwhelmed by what had happened that day (and caught up in watching Jaquie’s footage of their kiss over and over again to relive the heady feelings that had caused) to relax into sleep.  He was, he realised, very tired and the idea of curling up in bed was very appealing.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.  “Just let me say goodnight to everyone.”

“You … uh, how are we doing this?”

“Doing what?”

Peter blushed, for once looking a little unsure.  “Sleeping.  I mean, are we sticking to our own rooms, or …?”

“Oh.”  Balthazar started.  He hadn’t thought about that side of things.  Well, not since they’d got together.  Of course, when he’d thought of it in the past it had been with an intense longing that had bridged the gap between their rooms and seen him fantasising about being in bed together.  The thought now made his cheeks heat and his eyes drop to look at the floor.  “Um.  I don’t mind, really.  I …”

“Not that we’d have to, like, do anything,” Peter said.  “But, I just … I kind of want to sleep next to you.  If … if you don’t mind, that is.”

Balthazar could feel the grin forming on his face, and watched the corresponding one appearing on Peter’s.

“Nah, I don’t mind.  I think I’d like that.”

“You _think_ you’d like it?”  Peter teased. 

“Well, you know, I can’t go round inflating your ego too much …”

He squeaked as Peter grabbed him again and caught him in another hug.  The kiss they shared quickly became heated.  Balthazar drew away reluctantly to let Peter gather his stuff and so he could say goodnight to Freddie and Kit and get into his own pyjamas.  As he slid into bed, he reflected on the circumstances that had led him to this place.  For all it had been long and hard, he didn’t think he’d been ready any earlier.  Ben’s suggestion that it had taken too long was a bit off, as far as he was concerned.  Even a few weeks ago, Balthazar didn’t think he’d been stable enough emotionally to deal with all this.  But now … now he felt like things were where they should be.  When Peter entered the room again, Balthazar smiled at him.  This?  This felt right, like he was home again.  Finally.


	5. Chapter 5

**Section Five**

Peter’s plan was simple, and Balthazar hoped it would be effective.  The idea was that they would post some old Balth in a Bath footage of Ben and Balthazar singing Ben’s song for Beatrice to try to remind Bea how much Ben really loved her.  Meg promised to get Bea to at least watch it, and Balthazar and Peter privately agreed that if nothing else she would at least be thinking of Ben and see how much he’d missed her during the entire year.

The idea did remind Balthazar that he hadn’t watched all of the videos from the last few weeks.  With some trepidation he sat down with his phone and headphones while Peter was editing the footage he wanted to post.  Peter was perched at the end of Balthazar’s bed, his face intense as he watched the footage he had, and Balthazar felt his heart skip a beat as he watched Peter frown in concentration.  He leaned back against the wall with his phone on his knee, and pulled the headphones on.  Taking a deep breath, he clicked on the first of the new-to-him videos.

An hour later, he shook himself out of the weirdly nostalgic state he found himself in.  Or rather, Peter shook him out of it.

“Hey, you almost done?”

He slid up the bed and nestled in beside Balthazar, who nodded, turning to look at his boyfriend with a fond look.

“This was weird.”

“Weird why?”

“You all look so sad, and I dunno …”

“Yeah, it wasn’t my favourite time, but it’s over now.”  Peter kissed Balthazar under his chin for emphasis, and Balthazar laughed, leaning in to the touch.  There were some things he desperately wanted to ask Peter about the videos, but he wasn’t sure how much Peter would want to think about that time.  He sighed, and Peter looked at him.

“What’s up?”

“I just … I want to …”

Peter nodded, understanding.  “You can ask, I don’t mind.  I always kind of thought you’d be watching anyway.  Or hoped.”

“Did you really talk to Paige at my party?”

Peter smiled, his expression getting even softer than it had been.

“Yeah.  I was drunk and a bit maudlin, but we had a long chat.”

“About me?”

“Yeah, among other things.  I had … a few things I needed to get out.  Like, you left with that guy and I couldn’t understand why.”

“Zeb.  And I’m sorry.  I …”

“Nah, you have nothing to apologise for.  It’s not like you were tied to me or anything.”

“I needed a break from the flat, you know?  And, well, yeah …”

“I wish things had been different.”

“I don’t.  I don’t think I was really ready.  I didn’t really believe anything could happen with you, and I needed to have that bit of time for myself first.”

“Makes sense.”

“But why did you think I’d hate you?  You know I’ve never hated you.”

“Because …” Peter blushed and turned his head away.  “Because I spent so much time trying to make you hate me.  And I thought you must because you didn’t really come near me all that night, and then …” he trailed off, looking a little unhappy.

“And then Zeb.  Yeah, I get it.”

“None of that matters now anyway, right?”

“True.  It was a nice song.  I may have listened to it a few times in the last hour.  That and the sonnet.”

Peter laughed and pushed Balthazar.  “That’s a bit big-headed isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s not every day you get songs and poems written about you.  I had to bask in it a bit.”

Peter kissed him.  Mostly, Balthazar thought, to shut him up but he didn’t mind too much.  It was several long minutes before they pulled back again, now almost lying on the bed rather than propped up against the wall.  Balthazar twined their fingers together and kept his gaze on them as he asked about the video for Ben.

“Yeah it’s done.  I hope Bea watches.  I hope Meg’s not so angry with Ben that she ‘forgets’ to show her.

“Nah, she was pretty good with the idea when I talked to her.  She wants Bea to be happy, and it’s pretty obvious she isn’t right now.  If you’re worried though, you could send her a link maybe?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that.” 

After that, conversation became less important as the two of them discovered the joys of just being together.  Balthazar didn’t think he could possibly get any happier than this.

 

The next few days remained a blur of happiness for Balthazar.  He enjoyed being in the flat again, hanging out with his friends.  Ben came out of his shell a little more and was almost embarrassingly thankful for the video Peter had edited and put online.

“Do you think she’ll watch?” he asked when he first saw it.

“I hope so,” Peter said, sitting next to him and hugging him again.  “I worked hard on it, after all.”

Ben snickered, then gave a happy-sounding sigh.  “You guys!  I can’t believe you did this for me.” 

He pulled Balthazar in for a three-way hug, squishing his face against his shoulder in a way that wasn’t entirely comfortable, but Balthazar couldn’t bring himself to protest.

“We’re your mates, Ben.  Of course we want to help,” he said. 

“You know we have your back, right?  We’re a team,” Peter added, smiling over Ben’s head at Balthazar.

Ben grinned as he looked at them.  In the past, this kind of intense scrutiny had made Balthazar uncomfortable, but now watching the two of them together seemed to make Ben happier and so he just smiled and tried to ignore it.  Peter, too, seemed to be more open to having Ben stare at them with a fond smile, and in fact there were times when Balthazar wondered if he was playing up the doting gazes he bestowed on Balthazar for Ben’s benefit.  Peter’s relationship with the other flatmates seemed to have improved significantly even from the time when Balthazar had first moved out.  There had been an underlying tension there even as late as the sardines game, but now they had an ease and friendliness that hadn’t been there since before Hero’s birthday last year.  It felt nice – like they had regained the closeness in the group which had been missing since that time.  Now, he thought, it was just a case of getting Bea and Meg back into the fold.

To that end, Balthazar made his way to Fred’s house again on the Friday.  Peter had a rehearsal, Freddie and Kit were off somewhere together and Ben insisted he would be fine on his own, so Balthazar steeled himself and went to see his friends.  As he knocked, he wondered if this was the most sensible plan.  But he felt the need to try to repair any bridges he’d broken while he had been so unhappy.

“Balth! Hi.”

Meg sounded surprised to see him, and he winced.

“Hi, Meg.  Can I come in?”  He sounded stiff and unsure, even to himself and he could see her eyes widen as she watched him.

“Of course.  Wasn’t so long since you lived here, right?  You having second thoughts?”

“Oh.  No.  I’m happy where I am.”

“I bet you are.”

Meg smirked at him and winked as she spoke.  Balthazar could feel the blush heating his cheeks again.  He ducked his head self-consciously as he entered and followed Meg into the living room.

“I just wanted to say how sorry I am,” he said as he sat down on the couch.  “I feel like I wasn’t as nice to you guys here as I could have been.”

“Balthy, you’re so ridiculous.  You’re fine.”

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and looked at the ground as he said, “anyway, I didn’t really say goodbye to you guys, not properly I mean.”

“It’s fine.  We get it, really we do.”

“That was a bit too easy,” Balthazar said, finally looking up at her, his brow wrinkling in confusion.  “Don’t you want to yell at me a bit?”

“Why?  What would that achieve?”

“I don’t know.  I just feel a bit incomplete – built up to coming here, you know.”

Meg laughed, her head thrown back, sounding delighted.  “You’re too precious.  Honestly, I think we all understand.  And anyway,” her brow furrowed a little in memory, “we all did some stupid things too.  Bea told me about your conversation.  You know, about the video we posted.”

“Oh.  Right.”

Balthazar looked down, feeling a little uncomfortable.  He’d come here for this, but he still didn’t enjoy confronting issues, and this was one that made him feel very out of his depth – he still regretted the anger he’d shown to his friends when they’d been hurting.  Meg laughed again and sat down next to him.

“Look at you,” she said, patting his hand.  “All anxious about this.  I promise I won’t bite.”

He nodded, still not really willing to really look her in the face.  He didn’t want to be reminded of that day.

“Anyway, Bea told me what you said when you calmed down and I think you were right, you know?  We didn’t think that whole business through.”

“I still shouldn’t have yelled; that was uncalled for.”

“Yeah, well.  We’ve all done stuff we’re not proud of, so don’t worry about it.  Water under the bridge, right?”

Balthazar nodded and she hugged him.  He was getting an awful lot of hugs lately, Balthazar mused.  But he was starting to enjoy it.  There was something really calming about a hug when you’ve made peace with someone.  When she let him go, he leaned back against the back of the couch and broached the subject he’d really come for.

“How’s … how’re things here?”

Meg gave him a knowing look.  “With Bea you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s okay, I think?  Like there’s been some tears, and some shouting – you know her.  And god, she’s been arguing so much with her mum.”

“With Hermione? What about?”

“Travel.  Ben.  The usual, you know.”

“Has she … thought about him much?  At all?”

“Only all the time,” Meg said, sounding exasperated.  “She asks me at least ten times every day if she made the right decision.”

Balthazar felt a swell of hope at the words.  If Bea was this unsure then there was still a chance that Ben could talk to her and they could work things out.  He said as much and Meg shook her head ruefully.

“Maybe.  But I don’t think it’s time yet.  She’s still raw and angry and this thing with her mum is making her so stressed.  I don’t think he should talk to her right now.”

She saw the look that must have appeared on Balthazar’s face and patted his arm.  “I don’t think it’ll be long, though.  I think under it all she really misses him.  She just needs to work through the anger.”

“Makes sense.”

“So.”  Meg sat up suddenly and grabbed his arm.  “You have to tell me all the details.  Every soppy, lovesick moment of the last few days.”

At his deepening blush, she giggled.  “Balth!  Come on!  We’ve been dying here.  We almost have more invested in this than you do.”

He chuckled.  “I doubt that very much.  But what do you want to know?”

“Everything.  What you said, what he said.  How terribly romantic it all was.”

Still blushing, Balthazar laughed again.  “It wasn’t that dramatic, but okay.”

They settled in together, and Balthazar found himself gushing far more than he’d expected.  When he was with Peter everything seemed so easy and it was simple to fall into a routine with him.  But there was a certain delight in being allowed to talk at length about how wonderful he was and how happy Balthazar was feeling now.  He’d kept so much of this inside, unable to let himself show the world exactly how gone he was on Peter.  So having someone like Meg, so unjudgemental and open to hearing every detail with an enthusiasm that almost matched his own, was a godsend. 

By the time he left that afternoon he was glowing.

“You’re so bloody adorable, Balth.  I’m happy for you,” she said as she hugged him goodbye.

“You’ll come visit soon, right?  I miss having you around. I promise I won’t get the tent out – unless you want to visit in there for old time’s sake.”

Meg chuckled and ruffled his hair.  He ducked away, pretending affront as she said, “I’ll try.  Be nice to see everyone again, even Bendy dick.”

 

The next day, Peter sat down next to Balthazar with a serious look on his face.  Balthazar smiled at him and reached out to take his hand.  He hummed a little as he jotted a few last notes in his music notebook, but grinned as Peter raised their joined hands to his lips.  He set the notebook aside and looked at Peter.

“Hey,” Peter said carefully, brushing Balthazar’s hair off his face with his free hand.  “How’re you?”

“Hi, yourself,” Balthazar said.  “I’m good.  Just got some lyrics in my head, you know …”

“I do know.  It’s very sexy.”

Balthazar could feel the blush creeping up his neck, so he changed the subject.  “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”  Peter laughed a little at Balthazar’s disbelieving expression.  ‘Okay, fine.  I’ve been thinking.”

Peter ran his free hand through his hair, ruffling it completely.  Balthazar felt his heart squeeze in his chest.  He still couldn’t believe that this was real – that Peter, who had always been so unattainable, had chosen him.  It always made something go warm and soft in Balthazar’s chest when Peter showed his vulnerable side in front of him.  And it was obvious to Balthazar that Peter was feeling pretty vulnerable today.  Peter coughed slightly, and Balthazar dragged his thoughts back to the present with some effort.

“Hmmm?” he said encouragingly.

“I think … like, I know Ben wants …” Peter broke off and looked beseechingly at Balthazar.  He smiled and shrugged, baffled and unsure what Peter was trying to say.  Peter took a breath and tried again, with a self-deprecating smile.  “You don’t have to, okay?  Because I know you said you don’t like it, but … I think we should film a vlog.”

“We should film …?”

“Yeah.  You and me.  Us.  Together.  You know, about us.”

Balthazar tensed.  He could feel Peter’s hand twitch in his own. He grasped it tighter, reassuring Peter that it was okay.

“I don’t … I don’t know.  Why do you think we should?”

“Well, you know how down Ben’s been lately, and I think he’d like it, yeah?”

Balthazar snorted.  “Like is a bit of an understatement.”

Peter smiled, and added, “and I dunno … I guess I thought it might be nice to look back on.  You know, when we’re old and grey and can’t remember any of this.”

Balthazar felt a burst of giddy joy rush through him at Peter’s casual reference to his perception of the longevity of their relationship.  To cover, he sniggered.

“You really are a sap.”

“Maybe I am, but you’re the one in love with me so you must like it.”

“I might like it a little, yeah,” Balthazar said as he leaned over to kiss Peter again.

“So you’ll do it?  I don’t want to push you into anything.”

“Yeah it’s fine.  If it’s awful we don’t have to post it, right?”

“Right.”

Peter looked so happy that Balthazar forgot his momentary reservations.  After all, vlogging was fine so long as he had some control over it.  It wasn’t going to be like before.

The actual filming went better than expected.  There were a few moments which Balthazar knew were going to look so embarrassingly sappy that he was planning on refusing to let Ben post them.  But overall he was actually pretty happy with what they had produced.  It was good to get it all sorted and straight between them.  Any lingering doubts he’d had about what had happened and where they were heading had dissipated.  Balthazar couldn’t quite believe how happy he felt when Peter took his hand, saying, “we are very very clever.”

The irony wasn’t lost on Balthazar, but he’d never felt as content as he did in that moment.  They _were_ clever, after all.  They’d finally sorted out what was happening between them and it felt like they’d done it at the perfect time.

For all Ben tried to insist he’d been the mastermind behind the scenes, Balthazar felt like he and Peter had actually just needed time.  Time and a bit of perspective.  It felt now like this had been inevitable – putting his life in the hands of the gods may have appeared a little passive, but Balthazar didn’t think either of them would have been really ready earlier.  He had needed the distance, he realised, to let him know this was the right thing to do – and he thanked his lucky stars every day that Peter had come to the same realisation at the same time.

Maybe the gods knew what they were doing, after all.  Not Ben and his love gods – they had made things even more awkward rather than helping – but whatever metaphorical gods were looking over Balthazar’s heart.  Whatever it was had eventually put Peter and him on the same path at the same time.  Maybe he should write a song some time to thank the universe for this.

 

“Oh, no.  No.  Nah.  I’m not hugging you while you look like that.”  Balthazar laughed and pushed Peter away as he tried to put his arms around him.  They had found themselves on the outskirts of an impromptu pillow fight that had arisen once the other flatmates and assorted extras had turned up in the living room.  Peter was trying to take the chance to have some time alone together.  However, there were feathers flying everywhere and that, combined with the flour, made Peter a very unappealing prospect.

“Like what?  This is a very sexy look for me.”

“Nah, it’s really not.  And I don’t want to get covered in all that … stuff.”

Peter pouted.  “Not my fault.  I was viciously attacked.”

“To be fair, you threw the first food-punch, so to speak.”

Peter looked so crestfallen that Balthazar laughed again and took pity on him.  “Here, come on.  We’ll get you cleaned up, and then you might look more appealing.”  He held his hand out to Peter and when he took it, Balthazar led him through to the bathroom.

It only took a couple of minutes to clean the flour off Peter’s face, and not many more before he’d got the bulk of it out of his hair, and then run his hands through his hair a few times to try to get it looking okay again.

“Flour is not a good hair product,” Peter complained as he inspected himself in the mirror.  “I need to have a shower to get this out properly.”

“A shower, huh?  That sounds fun.”  Balthazar moved closer and looked up at Peter, sniggering as his expression changed from frustration to interest.

Peter laughed.  “Perhaps not right now,” he said, his voice filled with regret.  “Too many people here …”

Balthazar nodded.  “True.  Are you done?  We should probably –“ He waved his hand in the direction of the lounge where they could still hear the sounds of laughter and the occasional thump of a pillow connecting to someone’s body.

“Yeah.  Let’s go.”

Peter led Balthazar out of the room, but before they’d taken many steps Balthazar caught his hand.  Peter turned to look at him, his brow raised in query.

“You look much more appealing now,” Balthazar said, stepping in close.

“Oh, I do, huh?”  Peter leaned against Freddie’s door and slid an arm behind Balthazar’s back.  Balthazar felt himself relaxing against Peter’s chest as he ran his own hands up Peter’s arms to rest on his shoulders.  It was a reaction he almost always had when they were close together.  Peter added, “You want that hug now, then?  I’m not sure you deserve it after siding with Vegan Fred against me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Balthazar said, reaching up to kiss him.  Peter needed no further encouragement, eagerly following Balthazar’s lead.  Balthazar lost himself in the kissing, tuning out anything and everything other than Peter. 

While he’d intended it to be just a quick kiss before they re-joined their friends, it soon became heated. So a minute or so later, when a noise behind him startled Balthazar out of the kiss and he saw the camera trained on them, he knew he should be embarrassed at being caught making out on film.  But he really didn’t care.  Indeed, the look Vegan Fred was giving them as he filmed them made Balthazar grin sheepishly and then, on impulse, reach up to kiss Peter’s cheek.  Balthazar knew he shouldn’t be … what?  Staking a claim?  Making a point?  Being petty?  But he couldn’t help it.  Vegan Fred was a nice enough guy, but Balthazar needed him (and everyone else, if he were being honest with himself) to realise this thing with Peter wasn’t a flash in the pan.  That, after all this time, Balthazar wasn’t going to let go of it easily.  A hard-won relationship was worth fighting for, and no matter what happened, Balthazar would fight for it.  He knew Peter felt the same way – they’d talked about it, after all.

Besides, there was something heady in being able to kiss and touch Peter whenever he liked.  He’d wanted this for so long that now it was here he revelled in letting himself do it.  That cheek kissing always made Peter melt into a puddle of giggles just made it better.  There was something so amazing in being able to have that effect on the person he loved, that Balthazar gave in to the impulse often.  Being hugged because of it was an added bonus, Balthazar thought happily as he relaxed into Peter’s arms again and tried to ignore the camera that was still filming them.

“Still cameras in our faces all the time,” Balthazar whispered as he finally stepped back a little.

“Yeah, but who cares?  Let them film us.”  Peter shook his head.  “We’re so great why wouldn’t they want to?”

Balthazar laughed, and leaned in for another hug after one final glance at the camera.  He found himself so happy that he didn’t really care if it was filmed or not. 

 

Soon, too soon, however, everything came to a conclusion.  Hero arrived, distraught over her brother’s illness, and as if that was the signal for their flat’s end, all their carefully made plans wound up changing.  The fragile peace they’d fought so hard to gain for the future of their flat remained, but in the end it was unnecessary.  Instead of looking for a job, Ben decided to go back to Auckland with Bea and Hero.  As soon as he’d reunited with Bea, Ben had become almost terrifyingly happy.  He was a lot less worried about what he felt the ‘right’ thing to do was, and far more focused on what made Bea happy.  Well, as happy as she could be under the circumstances.  It signalled the end of their flatting life in a very sudden and permanent way which made Balthazar almost as unhappy as the news of Leo’s cancer had. 

To make things worse, Meg decided to stay in Wellington but not in their flat, and the final blow occurred when Kit and Freddie announced they wanted to move in somewhere together.  Alone.  Christmas was coming in just a week’s time, and by then the flatmates and friends would all be scattered.  That, thought Balthazar sadly, was going to leave the flat fragmented and the very thought made him feel out of sorts.  Peter noticed.  He threw himself down on the couch next to Balthazar and grinned at him, clearly trying to lighten his mood.

“Hey Balth, how’s things?”

Balthazar shrugged.  “Better now you’re here.”

Peter’s demeanour changed immediately.  He slid his arm around Balthazar’s shoulders and pulled him close.  “You seem sad.”

Peter’s care of him, Balthazar thought with a small smile, was such a blessing.  He could go from easy-going, cheerful life of the party to solicitous boyfriend in seconds.  Every time it happened Balthazar thought how lucky he was to have this person.  He relaxed into the hug.

“I guess I am a bit.  It’s … it’s all ending.”

“What is?”

“The flat, this …” he sighed.  “I just feel like we’re losing everyone.  Just when we got things sorted again.”

“Yeah.  All that talking for nothing, huh?”

Balthazar laughed.  “As if you didn’t enjoy getting all that off your chest.”

“It may have been a little bit cathartic, yeah.”

They smiled at each other, and Balthazar could tell by the look in his eyes that Peter was also remembering how good it felt to say the things that needed to be said and how much closer it felt like they got to the others when it was over.  He dragged himself back to the present and the most pressing worry.

“What do we do now, though?  We can’t really stay here by ourselves.”

“Find a place together?”

Despite the warmth that flooded him at the words, Balthazar sighed, feeling wistful.  “I like this place.”

“We could stay here, then.  Find other flatmates … I don’t really care, so long as I have you with me.”

Peter kissed his hair and tightened the arm he had around him, and finally Balthazar allowed himself to smile. 

“You’re still such a sap,” he said as he turned to kiss Peter properly.  “But you’re right, that does sound nice.  And I guess we’ll see most of them around.  Meg’s still going to be here, right?  Paige, Chelsey, Kit, Freddie.  Costa even, I guess.”

“And Jaquie, and so many others.  It’ll be okay.  We can visit Auckland and see the others.  Claudio is thinking of coming here next year – he might even want to flat with us.  It’s not really over.”

“I guess not.  I just feel weird knowing this, us … this flat, is finishing.”

Peter pulled him close and rubbed his hand on his back, knowing without needing to hear the words that Balthazar needed it.  Not for the first time, Balthazar felt cherished and understood.  It was a heady feeling, one he still wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to.

“You know what, though?” Peter said, thoughtfully.  “We still have all the videos, as horrible as some of them were.  We’ve got a record of our time here.  It’ll never truly be gone.”

Balthazar leaned over and kissed him again.  “You’re right, as always.”

“I wouldn’t say always,” Peter said, laughing.  “Just most of the time.”

“Get away from me with this big head!”

Balthazar pushed Peter in mock affront, but his heart felt lighter.  Peter _was_ right – things were changing, but they would have most of their friends around them and there was skype for the rest.  And who knew what other adventures would turn up.

“Anyway, we should go,” Peter said, breaking into his thoughts.  “I’ve been sent to collect you for the big musical extravaganza video Ben wants to do as his last offering.”

Balthazar groaned.  “Do we really have to do the choreography?”

“Yes we do.  You know we’ve got it practised to perfection.  Now come on or we’ll be late.”

Peter stood at the door and beckoned with a flirty look on his face.  Smiling, Balthazar stood, took his hand and pressed a kiss to his cheek.  Peter’s resulting grin made Balthazar’s heart soar.  This may be the final act in their vlogging life, but just looking at Peter eased his fears.  So long as they were together life could throw anything it liked at him.  He could cope.  More than cope, actually – he could thrive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end. Sorry it took so long - I should have listened to myself and got it done during my holidays. The last five weeks have been hectic and this was the first chance I had to finish this off. Hopefully it was somewhat worth the wait anyway.


End file.
